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WASHINGTON -- An unlikely mix of Hispanics, farmers and high-tech businesses has stepped up pressure on Congress to overhaul U.S. immigration laws, boosting prospects for a bill that would allow more foreign workers into the country.
Last year, the Republican-led House of Representatives derailed an immigration bill because it would have given a path to citizenship for those who entered the country illegally.
But supporters say chances are good that the new, Democratic-led Congress will pass some form of immigration bill. President George W. Bush is likely to renew his call for broad immigration legislation, including a guest worker program, in his State of the Union address this week.
"I think prospects are good," said Assistant Senate Majority Leader Richard Durbin of Illinois.
Pressure to allow in more workers has been mounting since Congress passed a law in September to fund hundreds of miles of new fences along the border with Mexico and a series of raids against illegal workers last month by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
On January 8, the League of United Latin American Citizens and the Hispanic Federation asked Democratic leaders to take action on immigration within 100 days, saying the raids "stirred further emotion and fear" in the Hispanic communities.
Swift and Co., whose meatpacking plant was raided on December 12, said this month that the raid could cost the company as much as $30 million.
(They are getting ready to legalize slavery!)
And farm groups said farmers faced millions of dollars in losses this year if a crackdown against illegal immigration continues without a balancing program to bring in workers legally.
"There is a sense of urgency here," said Sen. Larry Craig, an Idaho Republican who, along with California Democrat Sen. Dianne Feinstein, introduced a bill that would create a special program for illegal farm workers to adjust their status.
U.S. companies are also clamoring for more H1B visas to allow foreign software engineers and other skilled workers into the country.
The 65,000 visas allotted for 2007 were taken by the end of May last year, months before the end of the fiscal year in September, said Jack Krumholtz, the head of Microsoft Corp.'s government affairs office. It is also difficult to get permanent U.S. residency for foreign workers who would like to stay, he said. "This is becoming for high-tech companies a huge retention issue," Krumholtz said. "We will start to see highly valued tech employees emigrate back to their home countries." (THEN WHY DID THEY LET THEIR AMERICAN WORKERS GO?)
NEW POLITICS
Last year, a bill passed the Senate that would have provided more visas for highly skilled workers, combined tougher border enforcement measures with a guest worker program, and given millions of illegal immigrants a chance to earn U.S. citizenship.
But the bill was never considered by the House, where a solid group of Republicans opposed it, calling it an amnesty for people who broke U.S. law.
Instead the House passed enforcement-only legislation that further criminalized illegal presence in the United States and tried to make tough immigration enforcement an issue in the 2006 congressional elections.
Since then, some of the more outspoken opponents of the measure, including Republican Rep. John Hostettler of Indiana and Rep. J.D. Hayworth of Arizona, lost their seats in midterm elections on November 11.
But Rep. Thomas Tancredo, a Colorado Republican who led the fight against the Senate bill last year and who is exploring his chances as a potential presidential candidate, says he will push to block any similar comprehensive bill this year.
House Republican leaders, mindful of the deep split in their party over immigration, say they see a chance for broad legislation, but it will need to put tough border enforcement measures in place before any guest worker program or other plans for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants living in the United States.
"There is a path to a bipartisan solution and I think that there are a lot of informal bipartisan discussions going on to try to strike that balance," said Florida Rep. Adam Putnam, a member of the House Republican leadership.
Proponents of a comprehensive bill, though confident of passage, still expect new battles, including whether illegal immigrants should have the chance to earn citizenship.
House Republican Whip Roy Blunt of Missouri said he would not support a bill that offered citizenship for those who entered the country illegally. But Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat who is heading the House Judiciary panel on immigration, believes differences can be worked out.
"If we stop yelling at each other and just calmly and methodically work through the issues... we'll come up with a practical bill that will work and will last," Lofgren said.
The other side sees the common demonimators between illegal aliens at the low and and guestworkers at the higher end. By legalizing illegals, they will no longer be subject to disruptive raids and the resulting bad PR. Once they are legalized, whole industries can effectively be allocated to them. But, the catch is that no job is safe. Here is a letter from activist Kim Berry, hot off the presses, that should send a chill into any 'objective' reporter on this issue. It's not up on his web site yet, but it's circulating on the boards and elists.
"January 21, 2007
Dear Executive Editor and Reporters, Sacramento Bee
You have again run the same fraudulent job ad by Infinite Solutions that I
alerted you to on December 25, 2006
<http://www.programmersguild.org/rir/sacbeeletter_25dec2006.html> . But that
is not why I am writing today.
On January 9, 2007 I revealed
<http://www.programmersguild.org/rir/sacbeeletter_8jan2007.html> that you
had applied for two H-1b staff reporters, paying them a wage of $45,500, and
Rick Rodriquez personally claimed on the applications that the "prevailing
wage" for staff reporters is $23,400.
Then last week we learn that the Bee has been offering buyouts to its senior
<http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2007/01/15/daily47.htm
l> staff reporters, and nine had accepted the buyouts. In this previous
December 20, 2006 report
<http://sacramento.bizjournals.com/sacramento/stories/2006/12/18/daily30.htm
l> , long-term Bee reporter Claire Cooper states that this is a "very sad
time" for her. Regarding the departure of so many experienced writers,
Executive Editor Rick Rodriquez said, "It doesn't affect me directly.
<http://www.newsreview.com/sacramento/Content?oid=oid:268859> "
Do you dispute any of these claims?
* The Bee's H-1b reporters are less skilled than the staff that was
offered buyouts
* The salary of the Bee's H-1b reporters is substantially less than
the staff that the Bee sought to purge
* The Bee retained its H-1b reporters while American staff were being
offered buyouts to leave.
This is what U.S. tech workers complain is happening across the U.S.,
including at local employers HP and Intel: Lower paid H-1b workers are
brought in, learn the job tasks from American workers, then the skilled
American workers are terminated. Then the corporations spend millions
lobbying Congress for more H-1b workers - and these lobbyists in turn affect
editorial content of major publications, like the Sacramento Bee.
(The Bee ran an Editorial in support of "company sponsorship of greencards
<http://dwb.sacbee.com/content/opinion/story/14296591p-15149800c.html> "
that are the cause of fake job ads.)
H-1b proponents deny that any such thing is happening. Rather they claim
that Americans "failed to keep their skills up." (Did the nine reporters who
left the Bee "fail to keep their skills up?") Proponents further claim that
American workers are protected because, by law, employers must pay H-1b
workers the "prevailing wage."
I'll ask again: Do any reporters at the Sacramento Bee believe that Rick's
claimed prevailing wage of $23,400 is sufficient protection from
displacement by lower-paid H-1b workers?
BTW: None of the programmers who responded to the HP Fake Job Ad that your
ran December 10, 2006
<http://www.programmersguild.org/rir/sacbeeletter_10dec2006.html> have been
contacted by HP. Some, such as myself, have prior HP experience, strong
internal references, and would clearly be qualified. But again, HP was not
really seeking to hire anyone - the ads are a ruse.
HP running fraudulent job ads is a bigger scandal than pretexting. So why
don't you investigate and report it?
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