SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE

Monday, August 2, 2004

PERSONAL PERSPECTIVE

Louis Freedberg
 

PRESIDENT BUSH has been more than willing to take on dangerous characters
such as Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and anyone who even thinks about
attacking us around the world.

''Bring 'em on," he declared.

But apparently his bravado doesn't extend to Tom Tancredo and his allies.

Tom who?

Tancredo, a Colorado Republican, is the most strident opponent of any effort
to legalize illegal immigrants. He is the most visible representative of a
significant segment of the Republican Party that wants to restrict
immigration -- and is using its financial clout to oppose even Republicans
they see as selling out to pro-immigrant forces.

Even though Bush has said he supports a temporary visa program for Mexican
migrants, the increasingly potent opposition to the idea among the
restrictionist right has rendered him virtually catatonic on the issue.

A number of bills legalizing some of the nearly 10 million illegal
immigrants in the United States have gone nowhere because Bush doesn't
support any of them -- despite this being an election year during which the
administration is supposedly wooing the Latino vote.

The one piece of legislation that should have sailed through Congress is the
Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits and Security Act, or AgJOBS. The
bill, the culmination of five years of intense negotiations, has garnered
extraordinary bipartisan support. The California Farm Bureau supports it, as
does the United Farm Workers. An astonishing 63 Senators -- including 26
Republicans -- are supporting the bill. Its chief sponsor is Sen. Larry
Craig, R-Idaho, one of the Senate's most conservative members. "AgsJOBS is a
win- win approach," Craig declared. "Workers would be better off than under
the status quo, with legal protections, higher wages, better working
conditions and safer travel, and growers would get a stable legal
workforce."

But the White House, along with the Republican leadership, had made sure the
bill never reached the Senate floor for a vote. Last month, for example,
Craig was pressured into not introducing it as an amendment to a bill
restricting class-action lawsuits.

What's so dangerous about the AgJOBS bill? It would grant temporary visas to
a half million undocumented farmworkers -- as many as half of whom live and
work in California. To qualify, applicants would have to prove they'd worked
for at least 100 days in agriculture before August 2003.

All applicants would be subject to a criminal-background check. They'd have
to work another 360 days in agriculture over six years to retain their visa.
They'd then qualify for permanent residence, and eventually citizenship.

The White House apparently doesn't like AgJOBS because it grants ''amnesty''
to illegal immigrants. Craig says he doesn't see how a bill that requires
you to work for up to six years in agriculture before qualifying for
citizenship amounts to amnesty.

But these days any proposal that can be tagged with the ''a'' word is about
as likely to pass as one granting amnesty to Saddam Hussein. For now, Bush
is trying to have it both ways: saying he supports a legalization program,
but then working to stall even reasonable legislation such as AgJOBS.

The president says he'll smoke out terrorists from whatever cave they're
hiding in. But when it comes to millions of working immigrants, he seems
content to leave them languishing in the shadows of the law. Could it be
that he is intimidated by the likes of one-note Tom Tancredo?