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Pressure from Bush’s conservative base has prompted the President to back away from granting “automatic” amnesty to more than 3 million undocumented Mexicans in the United States. While such a move would boost Bush’s support among Latino voters and would be the biggest change in immigration policy in 15 years, conservatives are afraid of encouraging a continued flow of illegal workers across the southern border. Despite the setback, President Bush is still considering a multi-stage process that would confer legal status and possibly eventual citizenship to these workers, and a high level task force headed by Secretary of State Colin Powell and Attorney General John Ashcroft may recommend the creation of a new “temporary guest worker program.”