Rove Urges Business Owners to Act on Immigration Reform
WASHINGTON, D.C., June 20, 2006—Of all the issues that delegates at the National Small-Business Summit plan to address with lawmakers on Capitol Hill today, Karl Rove, deputy chief of staff and senior advisor to the president, urged them to add one more to the list: immigration reform. Millions of legal and illegal immigrants come to the United States each year looking for work, opportunities and a better life—and it affects small businesses in big ways, Rove said, during a breakfast speech at the Summit. 
"We have always been a nation of immigrants and have had success at integrating and assimilating them all," Rove said. "But immigration is turning into a big problem. The more you look at it, the more clear it is that every single part of the system is broken."
Though many must scheme to get past border patrols to get here, they come mostly for noble reasons, Rove said.
"They have mouths to feed at home and no way to feed them. They know they can take a job here making $8 an hour instead of 50 cents, so they come for jobs every time they can."
But America should be able to secure its borders without putting all the responsibility on businesses to be the "document inspectors" when workers line up at their doors, Rove said, as the crowd applauded loudly.
"We need to provide a safe harbor to allow you to check and see if a worker is a legal immigrant, so the burden isn't just on you, and we need to direct you to a place where you can figure out the answer to that question quickly."
Rove also stressed the need for a temporary worker program and asked small-business owners for their support on such a plan.
"We ought to have a system that allows those who want to come here to work to be able to do so and to take the jobs for which Americans aren't lining up," he said.
He also noted that the government has "got to make it easy for workers to go back across the border when they are working here temporarily." Otherwise, they will lose their connection to home and chose to stay in the United States—illegally.
"They should be able to work and put together a pot of money and—when the time comes—return home, having created a much better life for themselves by coming here to earn money."
Rove also received applause when he said that immigrants need to be able to write and speak as well as read it to pass citizenship tests.
Americans have also been joined by a shared language and values and a common heritage, "and that is what we need to emphasize now," he said.
Rove, a former NFIB member and small-business owner, encouraged small-business owners to continue the fight for affordable health insurance and Small-Business Health Plan legislation, as well as efforts to expand health savings accounts. He also urged delegates headed to the Hill today to express their support of the line-item veto, a provision under consideration in Congress this week that would allow the president to restrain runaway government spending, and death-tax repeal, a tax that lawmakers "need to get rid of," Rove said.
"Are they afraid that when you die that you will get too much enjoyment out of it?" he said, drawing laughs from the crowd.
He thanked small-business owners for supporting the Bush administration's economic policy and tax cuts and for creating jobs across the country.
"Thanks for employing people and for dreaming a dream and pursing that dream," he said.
