I should have known it was too good to be true. That twinge of optimism I felt after President Bush’s speech yesterday was dashed within an hour. It seems his idea of “temporary” (as in “temporary worker”) is up to six years.

No, no, Mr. President. Temporary should be more like two or three months, long enough to harvest one season’s crop. Nothing more. Not long enough to be absorbed permanently (or disappear entirely) into our society and proceed to partake of our educational and health care systems. Immigrants seeking privileges like that can do it legally, via U.S. citizenship, as have generations of immigrants before them.

Illegal means illegal, Mr. Bush. What part of that do you not understand?