WBAI Radio’s Building Bridges:

Community & Labor Report – National Edition

Produced & Hosted by Mimi Rosenberg & Ken Nash



President Bush’s Plan for Immigrants:

Work Hard, Pay Taxes and then GET LOST!

with

Nancy Foner, Distinguished Professor of Anthropology at State University of NY at Purchase & Author of numerous books on the history

of immigration to the U.S.

Ana Avendano, Sr. Advisor on Immigration Issues, AFL-CIO

Hector Cordero-Guzman author “Migration,Transnationalization and Race in a Changing New York” and Chair of the Dept. of Black and Hispanic Studies, Baruch College, CUNY

Pres. Bush proposed new temporary worker program to reform the nation’s immigration system. Immigrant, labor and religious leaders blasted

the proposed program, demanding a reform package from the White House that provides a path to citizenship for immigrant workers and addresses the

enormous backlogs and service delays in other parts of the immigration system.

President Bush’s message to immigrants “is that they are welcome in our economy but not in our society,” said Margie McHugh, Exec. Dir. of the N.Y.

Immigration Coalition " his proposal would explicitly deny the American dream to immigrants from this generation onwards,” McHugh continued. “Under the

guise of immigration reform, the President has proposed a guest worker program which does not lead to permanent residency and citizenship and

essentially says to immigrant communities ‘work hard, pay taxes and then get lost,’"

“ President Bush’s announcement … of his principles for immigration reform is a hollow promise for hardworking, undocumented workers, people seeking to immigrate to the U.S. and U.S. workers alike. It creates a permanent underclass

of workers who are unable to fully participate in democracy. The plan deepens the potential for abuse and exploitation of these workers, while undermining

wages & labor protections for all workers.” said AFL-CIO Pres. John Sweeney

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Building Bridges is regularly broadcast over WBAI, 99.5 FM in the N.Y.C

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for more information email knash@igc.org