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(CNSNews.com) -- The co-sponsor of legislation to make it more difficult for illegal aliens to find work in the United States said Tuesday that the Bush administration is encouraging the illegal entry by offering amnesty and is trying to cover up the proof of its actions.

U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Colo.) has consistently warned that the "Temporary Worker Program," proposed by President Bush in January, would, "encourage millions of people to come here illegally seeking his amnesty proposal."

The White House denies that the program is the equivalent of amnesty, but Tancredo disagrees.

"It's amnesty," Tancredo said. "It's amnesty when you tell people they are not going to be punished for the violation of the law."

The Colorado Republican said there is now proof that the Bush administration recognized the proposal as amnesty for illegal aliens. He pointed to documents that the conservative legal advocacy group Judicial Watch obtained through a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.

Shortly after the president's January 7 speech announcing the plan, Border Patrol intelligence officers began surveying aliens detained inside the southern U.S. border "for the purpose of collecting data concerning the issue of amnesty" as a motivation for illegally crossing into the U.S., according to the Border Patrol.

"Early results from the Border Patrol survey indicated that President Bush's proposal did, in fact, lure greater numbers of illegal immigrants to the United States," Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch said. "Approximately 45 percent of respondents ... crossed illegally based upon rumors of a Bush amnesty program."

The survey asked randomly selected illegal aliens captured while crossing into the U.S. more than a dozen questions, including:

-- Did the rumors of amnesty influence your decision to enter the U.S.A.?

-- Have you heard from your government or other person, any mention of amnesty in the future by the U.S. government?

-- Have you been to the U.S.A. prior to this incident, legally or illegally?

According to a Judicial Watch analysis of the surveys released by the Department of Homeland Security, 63 percent "received Mexican government or media information supporting the notion of a Bush administration amnesty program." More than 60 percent of those surveyed had also previously entered the U.S. illegally, "some as many as six times." The government released approximately 850 of more than 1700 surveys conducted.

Fitton said three weeks after the scheduled six month survey was initiated, the Bush administration "abruptly shut it down." Tancredo believes the White House knew the survey results would undermine their claims about the Temporary Worker Program.

"I'm a Republican and I certainly can support the president on a lot of issues. But on this, as I've said time and again, he is just as wrong as he can be and the American people know it and understand it," Tancredo said. "And they're going to see a lot more. They're going to understand a lot more about the problem when they see this report and the specifics of it and how they tried to cover it up."

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