Congressman lashes Bush administration over immigration

WASHINGTON - A Colorado congressman is accusing the administration of trying to hide documents showing that President Bush sparked a surge in illegal immigration last year by proposing a guest-worker program.

The documents - obtained by the public-interest group Judicial Watch through Freedom of Information Act requests - show that aliens crossing America's southern border in the weeks after the president's Jan. 7, 2004, announcement interpreted his proposal as a general amnesty, said Rep. Tom Tancredo, a Republican and chairman of the Congressional Immigration Reform Caucus.

Some 45 percent of aliens who were stopped at the border said they were trying to enter the United States because they would be afforded an opportunity to stay under the president's plan, the documents showed.

The documents were obtained by Judicial Watch from the Department of Homeland Security. After the president announced his policy, the department ordered a survey of apprehended illegal immigrants to determine whether the proposal influenced their decision to cross the border.

About 1,700 questionnaires were filled out, ... The results establish that a significant number of the captured aliens were crossing the border to take advantage of what they understood to be the Bush program.

Once the outcome became apparent and could prove embarrassing, according to Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, "the Bush administration abruptly shut it down. The Border Patrol, at the behest of the White House, instructed its agents not to provide the information about the negative impact of the proposed amnesty program."

Agents were given a document from Homeland Security, marked "internal use only," that was described as "White House approved talking points" on Bush's temporary-worker program. Agents were told, "Do not talk about amnesty, increase in apprehensions or give comparisons of past immigration reform proposals" and "do not provide statistics on apprehension spikes or past amnesty data."

"Unfortunately, at a time when the United States faces an illegal-immigration crisis and a war on terrorism, Bush administration officials directed Border Patrol agents to mislead the American people," Fitton said. "This administration improperly withheld information it knew would be embarrassing."...

According to U.S. Border Patrol data, the number of illegal aliens apprehended along the nation's southwestern border jumped 25 percent in the first three months of 2004 compared to the same period in 2003.

Tancredo accused Homeland Security of issuing a "gag order" and then "stonewalling" when Judicial Watch sought information.

The events, he said, "suggest that the administration is playing politics with border-security data. I hope that this is not the case. It is crucial that the American people know that their government is not letting politics get in the way of national security."...

"I believe if somebody is willing to employ somebody and they can't find an American worker, and somebody is willing to do the job, we ought to make that connection a legal connection," Bush said. "People come here to work."

The White House proposal, he said, would make U.S. borders more secure "as opposed to people having to get in the back of 18-wheelers and sneaking across, you know, Texas borders, or trying to walk across the desert to find work."...

...The White House and the lawmakers maintain the worker program doesn't constitute amnesty. Tancredo disagrees.

"But it is amnesty when you say people are not going to be punished for violating the law," Tancredo said. "We're not stupid. We know it when we see it. So can the people outside this country who know amnesty when they see it."

Read a summary of the Judicial Watch report!

Desert Invasion - U.S.

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