Remarks on immigration reform - Week Ending Friday, January 9, 2004

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Jan 12, 2004

January 7, 2004

Thanks for coming. Thanks for the warm welcome. Thanks for joining me as I make this important announcement, an announcement that I believe will make America a more compassionate and more humane and stronger country.

I appreciate members of my Cabinet who have joined me today, starting with our Secretary of State, Colin Powell. I'm honored that our Attorney General, John Ashcroft, has joined us; Secretary of Commerce Don Evans; Secretary Tom Ridge of the Department of Homeland Security, I'm honored you're here; el embajador de Mexico, Tony Garza. I thank all the other members of my administration who have joined us today.

I appreciate the Members of Congress who have taken time to come: Senator Larry Craig, Congressman Chris Cannon, and Congressman Jeff Flake. I'm honored you all have joined us. Thank you for coming.

I appreciate the members of citizen groups who have joined us today: chairman of the Hispanic Alliance for Progress, Manny Lujan; Gil Moreno, the president and CEO of the Association for the Advancement of Mexican Americans; Roberto de Posada, the president of the Latino Coalition; and Hector Flores, the president of LULAC. Thank you all for joining us.

Many of you here today are Americans by choice, and you have followed in the path of millions. And over the generations, we have received energetic, ambitious, optimistic people from every part of the world. By tradition and conviction, our country is a welcoming society. America is a stronger and better nation because of the hard work and the faith and the entrepreneurial spirit of immigrants.

Every generation of immigrants has reaffirmed the wisdom of remaining open to the talents and dreams of the world. And every generation of immigrants has reaffirmed our ability to assimilate newcomers, which is one of the defining strengths of America.

During one great period of immigration, between 1891 and 1920, our Nation received some 18 million men, women, and children from other nations. The hard work of these immigrants helped make our economy the largest in the world. The children of immigrants put on the uniform and helped to liberate the lands of their ancestors. One of the primary reasons America became a great power in the 20th century is because we welcomed the talent and the character and the patriotism of immigrant families.

The contributions of immigrants to America continue. About 14 percent of our Nation's civilian workforce is foreign-born. Most begin their working lives in America by taking hard jobs and clocking long hours in important industries. Many immigrants also start businesses, taking the familiar path from hired labor to ownership.

As a Texan, I have known many immigrant families, mainly from Mexico, and I have seen what they add to our country. They bring to America the values of faith in God, love of family, hard work, and self-reliance, the values that made us a great nation to begin with. We've all seen those values in action, through the service and sacrifice of more than 35,000 foreign-born men and women currently on active duty in the United States military. One of them is Master Gunnery Sergeant Guadalupe Denogean, an immigrant from Mexico who has served in the Marine Corps for 25 years and counting. Last year, I was honored and proud to witness Sergeant Denogean take the oath of citizenship in a hospital where he was recovering from wounds he received in Iraq. I'm honored to be his Commander in Chief. I'm proud to call him fellow American.

As a nation that values immigration and depends on immigration, we should have immigration laws that work and make us proud. Yet today, we do not. Instead, we see many employers turning to the illegal labor market. We see millions of hard-working men and women condemned to fear and insecurity in a massive undocumented economy. Illegal entry across our borders makes more difficult the urgent task of securing the homeland. The system is not working. Our Nation needs an immigration system that serves the American economy and reflects the American Dream.

Reform must begin by confronting a basic fact of life and economics: Some of the jobs being generated in America's growing economy are jobs American citizens are not filling. Yet these jobs represent a tremendous opportunity for workers from abroad who want to work and fulfill their duties as a husband or a wife, a son or a daughter. Their search for a better life is one of the most basic desires of human beings.

Many undocumented workers have walked mile after mile through the heat of the day and the cold of the night. Some have risked their lives in dangerous desert border crossings or entrusted their lives to the brutal rings of heartless human smugglers. Workers who seek only to earn a living end up in the shadows of American life, fearful, often abused and exploited. When they are victimized by crime, they are afraid to call the police or seek recourse in the legal system. They are cut off from their families far away, fearing if they leave our country to visit relatives back home, they might never be able to return to their jobs.