Thread: [Idaho] We Need Our Foreign Workers

I'd like to see Sosad's and Tinybob's thoughts on this:
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POSTED ON OCTOBER 31, 2007:
We Need Our Foreign Workers
By BW Staff

Idaho needs its foreign workers. That's the message Idaho Department of Labor chief Roger Madsen sent to the Idaho Congressional delegation this week.

"Idaho's low unemployment rate makes it difficult to recruit enough United States workers to meet employer demands," Madsen wrote.

He's asking the delegation to support legislation that exempts returning foreign seasonal non-agricultural workers from the federal cap on annual visas.

In his letter to Sens. Larry Craig and Michael Crapo and Reps. Michael Simpson and Bill Sali, Madsen said if the exemption isn't in place soon, Idaho employers won't be able to hire enough workers because the 66,000 limit of foreign non-agricultural workers legally allowed into the U.S. has already been met.

"This action will severely affect the ability of Idaho employers who recruit foreign workers to maintain their work forces in the face of extremely low unemployment," Madsen wrote.

Last year, 90 Idaho employers were authorized to hire 2,200 documented foreign workers for non-agricultural jobs.

Seasonal work is the issue here: Ski resorts, tree-planting businesses and other time-sensitive operations rely on the seasonal help of foreign workers.

The exemption from the limit on foreign workers who had been hired previously and are returning to those jobs was part of the 2005 Save Our Small Business Act, which expired on Sept. 30 and has not been renewed by Congress. Legislation continuing the law has been caught up in the debates over immigration and better wages and protections for American workers.

According to the Idaho Department of Labor, a one-year extension of the exemption was unanimously approved by the U.S. Senate on Oct. 16 as part of the Commerce, Justice and Science Appropriations Bill and is now the subject of House-Senate negotiators trying to resolve differences between the House and Senate versions of the budget bill.

http://www.boiseweekly.com/gyrobase/Con ... d%3A308433

Sure, we need "foreign" workers. We need legal immigrants as workers and currently we admit 1 million people per year LEGALLY.
We don't need what the agricultural industry has been doing since 1986, which is knowingly hiring illegal aliens.
If companies need legal immigrants as workers, then they need go to their trade associations and lobby Congress to get the immigration law changed.
If they can't get the immigration law changed, THEY STILL NEED TO FOLLOW THE LAW. If you can't get people to work for you legally, the you will have to outsource the jobs to countries where people will willingly work at the wages you are willing to pay!

If you need workers due to low unemployment in Idaho, then run some adds in Detroit, Chicago, New York and Baltimore where there are lots of available workers looking for a nice new place to start a better life and raise their families.

Forget the foreign workers ... hire American Workers.

Originally Posted by Judy

If you need workers due to low unemployment in Idaho, then run some adds in Detroit, Chicago, New York and Baltimore where there are lots of available workers looking for a nice new place to start a better life and raise their families.

Forget the foreign workers ... hire American Workers.

That's right!