Thread: Salt Lake: Chamber proposes guest worker program UPDATE

Chamber proposes guest worker program





Associated Press - December 4, 2008 11:15 AM ET

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) - The Salt Lake Chamber of Commerce has proposed a guest worker program that it says could help improve Utah's economy.

The program presented Wednesday at a Capitol legislative meeting would create a 2-year, renewable guest worker authorization for foreign workers and undocumented immigrants living in Utah. The workers would have to register with a government agency and pass a security check and medical screening.
Chamber Public Policy Director Wesley Smith says the program still needs to get waivers of federal regulations to give Utah the right to issue temporary work permits, enforce federal and state immigration law and to give payroll withholdings to the state to cover health insurance and administrative costs.

Smith says the immigration law enforcement efforts would be necessary to stop a possible influx of undocumented workers who may be attracted to the Utah program.


Information from: Deseret News, http://www.deseretnews.com

Copyright 2008 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

http://www.localnews8.com/Global/story. ... =menu554_2

I thought Utah was smarter than this. Utah is one of the few (if not the ONLY) state running on a surplus instead of begging for a bail out.

NOT a good idea to invite guest workers in this economy.

If Utah has a legitimate labor shortage the same can not be said universally across the United States. The States should act cooperativelty to recruit and end unemployment by bringing in Americans from elsewhere.

Smith says the immigration law enforcement efforts would be necessary to stop a possible influx of undocumented workers who may be attracted to the Utah program.

Word spreads fast when people talk about "guest worker" programs. I am sure there are several thousands of illegal aliens already headed in Utah's direction.

The state of Utah does not have the power to regulate a visa program.

Dixie

Despite testimony, immigration bill looks to pass session intact
Reform » Controversial measure would kick in next summer
By Sheena Mcfarland

The Salt Lake Tribune

Updated: 12/07/2008 02:58:25 PM MST


Click photo to enlargeIMMIGRATION Representative Glenn A. Donnelson (R; North Ogden) throws up his... (Scott Sommerdorf)«12345»After more than two dozen hours of testimony about illegal immigration from Utahns across the state, it looks as if a comprehensive immigration reform bill will survive with only a couple of minor tweaks.

SB81 attempts to tighten immigration policy by enlisting local law enforcement to play a role, requiring public employers to use a citizenship-verification program and criminalizing the transportation or harboring of an undocumented immigrant for financial gain, among other provisions.

The bill passed in the 2008 session, but will not take effect until July 1, 2009. Members of the legislative Immigration Interim Committee have traveled the state during the last several months, hearing impassioned arguments from all sides, said Rep. Brad Dee, R-Washington Terrace.

"Most people have been supportive of SB81, and there was some opposition, but a lot of groups have asked for a stronger law," Dee said. "But SB81 is a reasonable compromise."

He sees only two facets of the bill getting amended this year. The bill requires all businesses contracting with the state to hire only legal workers. A bill will be drafted to clarify that a contractor is someone who goes through the bidding process. That would prevent, for example, grocery stores who accept food stamps from being subject to that provision.

Also, a bill extending the date for changes to the Utah driver license to coincide with the federal RealID effective date of January 2010.

Some


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lawmakers, though, hope to kill the bill outright.

Rep. Stephen Clark, R-Provo, will push replacement legislation that calls for a funded study to see if undocumented workers are helping or hindering the state's economy.

"We've gotten a lot of emotional testimony on the good side and bad side of illegal immigration, but … we need to have a study conducted to look into the real facts of the matter," said Clark, who sits on the immigration committee. "Knee-jerk reactions such as SB81 will not help the state."

Moving slowly and deliberately is something community activist Michael Clara says is financially prudent, especially with the bill's $1.75 million price tag.

"When state agencies are making cuts across the board, there's not going to be much appetite to deal with immigration the way SB81 will deal with it," Clara said. "Utah lawmakers will leave immigration with the federal government and what's driving that is the economic situation. They're going to find they cannot afford to do the job of the federal government."

But some of the bill's proponents say the bill doesn't go far enough.

Rep. Glenn Donnelson, R-North Ogden, said he would have liked to see the bill address the cost of educating undocumented immigrants. But "the bill needs to go through intact," said Donnelson, who was defeated in the Republican primary.

One provision in the bill would require law-enforcement officers to verify the citizenship status of inmates and grant authority to local officers to essentially serve as immigration agents.

"Law enforcement doesn't want to be out on the street to make those types of determinations and making arrests solely on their illegal status," said Cache County Sheriff Lynn Nelson, president of the Utah Sheriff's Association. "If there's a crime committed, though, and they're convicted and in jail, we're pretty supportive of the bill."
That authority, though, would require the Attorney General's Office to get permission from the Department of Homeland Security, something the office won't do until after this session.

"We need to find out what the final statute looks like," said Paul Murphy, spokesman for Attorney General Mark Shurtleff. "Then we'll work fairly quickly after the session to meet the July 1 deadline."

But some community activists still are saddened that after a full year of hearing testimony pleading for compassion, the bill looks set to make it through largely unchanged.

Manny Aguilar, an activist in St. George, got people together to take English as a Second Language classes, but he now worries that the ESL program will lose state funding for teaching undocumented immigrants.

"If you have a person who is undocumented, you might as well have that person educated. Why would you block them from that?" Aguilar asked.

More disappointing to him, though, was that he felt his testimony had little impact on the committee, with some members seeming to have already made up their minds.

"We're just hoping like crazy that Barack Obama will be compassionate and give us a fair shake," he said.

http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_11162964