President Bush?s plan to ?reform? immigration policy through a new guest worker program does little to address the real problems in the current system, immigrants to Minnesota say.

Three immigrants and an immigration lawyer spoke at a news conference Tuesday organized by AFFIRM, a coalition of immigrant groups, labor unions, churches and other organizations focused on reform of federal law. Local members include Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Local 17, the Service Employees International Union and United Food & Commercial Workers Local 789.

Bush?s plan, announced Jan. 6, ?only raises false hopes,? said immigration attorney Susana de Leon. ?It is not a promise of real immigration reform. Real immigration reform must provide a path to legalization, not a path to deportation.?

Kenyan immigrant Hesbon Simba addresses the news conference, as former bracero workers Jesus Martinez (right) looks on.

Bush?s plan would give millions of undocumented immigrants legal status for at least three years while they are working in the United States. They would be expected to return home when their jobs are done and part of their pay would be withheld until they returned.

To Jesus Martinez, that sounds a lot like the ?bracero? program, which brought him to the United States in the 1950s. From 1942 to 1964, about 400,000 men became ?braceros? - a term that stems from ?brazo,? the Spanish word for arm, and refers to their manual labor. Martinez picked cotton in Texas and fruit in Michigan for $5 a day under the program and, like many braceros, says the government and employers still owe him money.

?We got a lot of promises,? Martinez said at the news conference, held outside federal immigration offices in Bloomington. ?We are (still) waiting.?

De Leon said Bush?s proposal does not address immigrant?s biggest concerns, such as the ability to reunite families. Hesbon Simba emigrated from Kenya in 1997, but is still waiting for his children, ages 7, 11, and 13, to join him here. They received permission in 2000, but haven?t yet received visas.

Simba said his frustrations are shared by many other immigrant families. ?We cannot fix a broken system with a broken proposal,? he exclaimed.

Also absent from Bush?s proposal is a recognition of the contribution undocumented workers already make to the U.S. and local economies, and a path for them to attain citizenship, de Leon said.

She said any meaningful reform would include real wage and labor protections for immigrant workers and the existing U.S. labor force; just and humane enforcement of immigration laws that respect the civil liberties of immigrants; and ?a mechanism to control for future flows of immigrants so that we do not continue to create conditions that force people to live underground.?

AFFIRM members are concerned that Bush?s proposal will undermine efforts to pass real reform legislation that has broad and bipartisan support in Congress, de Leon said.

Many of those appearing at the news conference were participants in last fall?s Immigrant Workers Freedom Ride, a national event that drew attention to the contributions of immigrant workers and the need for changes in federal policy. National ride organizers issued a strongly worded statement saying Bush?s plan ?falls far short of the requirements of comprehensive immigration reform.?

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney said the issue is important not only to immigrants, but all American workers.

Bush?s proposal would create ?a permanent underclass of workers who are unable to fully participate in democracy,? Sweeney said. ?The plan deepens the potential for abuse and exploitation of these workers, while undermining wages and labor protections for all workers.

?Reforms to provide legal status to the millions of hardworking, undocumented workers living in this country must be comprehensive and fair. They cannot and should not be designed primarily to provide a steady stream of vulnerable workers for American companies.?

For more information
Visit the national AFL-CIO website, www.aflcio.org and the Immigrant Workers Freedorm Ride website, www.iwfr.org