Correction: Bush may have lied one fewer time in big speech

In my discussion of Bush's big May 15 immigration speech, I took issue with this statement:
And temporary workers must return to their home country at the conclusion of their stay.
I maintain that those "guests" will never leave, and thus that Bush lied to the country.

However, here's Kaus on that statement:
Was it a Clintonian weasel (technically accurate in the zen-tautological sense that their "stay" doesn't conclude until it concludes)
I'm forced to agree: in Bush's mind he might not have told a lie, because their "stay" will never end.

There's also this, which tends to show that Bush and the Senate don't intend our "guests" to ever leave:
Sens. John Cornyn (R-Tex.) and Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) tried to amend the bill to stipulate that the 200,000 low-skilled immigrants allowed to enter the country under a new temporary-worker visa would have to leave when the visa expired. With Bush and his top political aides in Arizona, conservative Republican aides persuaded lower-level White House staff members to back the amendment, reasoning that Bush has always said he backs a "temporary worker program," not a permanent funnel of immigrants to the United States.

"It was a matter of truth in advertising," Cornyn said.

When word reached the backers of the compromise, they were furious, according to a senior Republican Senate aide involved in the events. Immigrant groups such as the National Council of La Raza and the National Immigration Forum had said they would withdraw their support for the Senate bill if the amendment passed. With no prospects for equality under the law, temporary workers would become a permanent underclass, like immigrant laborers in France, they reasoned. And if temporary workers were not offered a path to citizenship, they would simply go underground when their visas expired, re-creating the problem of illegal immigration.
If anyone who comes here is eventually offered citizenship, that is closely approaching an open borders position.

Comments

Some people will in fact leave America. Some will be illegal aliens and some will be United States citizens.....But there ain't none of them leaving willingly, my friend.....and there ain't none of them leaving alive either.