Thread: Phoenix:Business groups fund campaign to legalize immigrants

Business groups fund campaign to legalize immigration
September 24, 2008 - 5:59PM
BY HOWARD FISCHER, CAPITOL MEDIA SERVICES

PHOENIX - Local and national business groups are funding a media campaign launched Wednesday in Arizona to convince voters that this country has done enough to secure the border and now needs to legalize the 12 million or more undocumented immigrants and consider allowing more foreigners into this country.

The group, Mexicans and Americans Thinking Together (MATT), is going to spend "several hundred thousand dollars'' on TV advertising in four states. Jim Pignatelli, president and chief executive officer of UniSource Energy Corp., the parent of Tucson Electric Power, said the time has come to move the debate along and find ways to help business get the workers they need now and in the future.

And Pignatelli said the best place to start is with those already here.

"You can't ignore 10 to 12 million people who are trying to make a living, who are undocumented,'' he said. Pignatelli, who said he is interested in the issue from a personal perspective and not because of his role at Tucson Electric, said if they could somehow be deported "it would take years for another 10 to 12 million to come in'' to fill the jobs they are doing now. "These people are providing valued services to the economy,'' he said.

The commercial says there have been "incredible strides'' made in border security, the number of deportations is up and there are stronger penalties against employers who hire undocumented workers. Glenn Hamer, president of the Arizona Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that's fine - as far as it goes.

"We need to finish the job on immigration reform at the federal level,'' he said. Hamer said that means not just legalizing those already here but ensuring that employers can bring in more foreign workers.

"It is an extraordinary benefit, not a burden, that people from all over the world who are bright and hard working want to come to the United States, want to come to Arizona, improve their lives and improve the prosperity for all Americans,'' he said.

But the effort to reshape the debate comes as many incumbent federal lawmakers and those hoping to unseat them in November are appealing to voters by promising to do more to staunch the flow of illegal immigrants into Arizona.

Even Sen. John McCain, who sponsored a comprehensive immigration reform bill last year that included a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants, has backed away from his own plan since announcing his bid for president.

"I get it,'' McCain said last August, acknowledging the public wants more done to secure the borders before any talk of immigration reform. And McCain, in a January televised debate, said he would not vote for his own legislation if it came back.

But former Congressman Henry Bonilla, a Texas Republican who is spokesman for MATT, said that ignores what has happened in the past few years, including more Border Patrol officers and more arrests..

"Major progress has been made,'' said Bonilla, who served in the U.S. House of Representatives for 14 years. "So I think those who have been concerned about that can say, 'OK, we've made progress.' Now can we bring this (immigration reform issue) back to the table and try to move forward?''

Pignatelli said he's not trying to shift the focus away from securing the border "so much as advancing to another state.'' He said it's simply recognizing the economic need.

"We need nurses, we need trained people which we're not able to produce out of our own work force,'' he said.

If nothing else, Pignatelli said, providing legal status to undocumented immigrants makes sense.

"I'd like to see them all on paper so we know who they are, what they're doing and everything is proper, tax-wise."

Pignatelli said that also addresses the concerns that illegal immigrants and their children are a financial burden on schools, hospitals and government.

"Once you've provided the appropriate papers to people and put them into where they're in a taxpaying situation and their employer has to provide for the same levels of taxation that you would for any other employee, then you start to cover some of those costs.

"You can't stick your head in the sand and say they're not here and they're not being a burden,'' Pignatelli continued. "But if they are, let's see how we can get a system to pay for that burden.''

Hamer said the claim of great progress in punishing employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers is not undermined by his organization's effort to kill Arizona's own employer sanctions law. The chamber is a plaintiff in the litigation to overturn that law, an effort that has so far been rebuffed by both a trial judge and a federal appeals court.

"We do support penalties against employers who knowingly hire illegal workers,'' Hamer said. He said the chamber's position is that this should be handled at the federal level solely.

But the chamber specifically objects to the fact that penalties under the state law - which includes suspension or revocation of the right to do business - are far stiffer than the civil fines meted out for federal violations.

Sheridan Bailey, owner of an iron fabricating company in Phoenix, said the desire for more foreign workers is not simply a question of companies wanting people willing to work for less than what it might take to convince others to move to Arizona.

"I suppose if you can raise wages to astronomical sums you'll get people attracted from somewhere. But we'll just exacerbate the problem because there aren't enough workers within the borders of the United States to solve the problem.''

Bailey, who also is president of Arizona Employers for Immigration Reform, said when he is no longer able to find or train people for IronCo jobs, the only alternative will be to get the work done where there are workers - which he said means Mexico.

http://www.yumasun.com/news/legalize_44 ... s_campaign

Once again the Elitist Politicians and their Elitist Contributors consider United States citizens only as "units of labor" and the sooner we become a Third World Country the better for their "bottom line"! Our Elitist Politicians and their Elitist Political Contributors will not be happy until they transform the United States into a Third World Country for most of our citizens while furnishing the Chamber of Commerce and all their Elitist Special Interest Groups with their supply of "cheap labor". The Elitist Politicians and their Elitist Contributors are "socializing benefits" to the ILLEGALS on the backs of United States citizens through our assets such as the Education System, Social Security, and Health Care not to mention our National Security while "privatizing" the profits for themselves!

are these guys for real! Alarge % of illeagals spend there time committing crimes and living off wellfare.Deport all the illegals and
get our own people back to work,then the economy will straiten out.

(Mod edit)

"I suppose if you can raise wages to astronomical sums you'll get people attracted from somewhere. But we'll just exacerbate the problem because there aren't enough workers within the borders of the United States to solve the problem.''

Really? Kinda hard to ignore the 8 million unemployed AMERICANS don't you think?

"We need nurses, we need trained people which we're not able to produce out of our own work force,'' he said.

ROFLMAO!!! It's not nurses that are paying smugglers to sneak them into to US, nor are they trained. What we're getting are the ones whose own countries DON'T want. They MUST be deported NOW!
NO AMNESTY! DEPORTATIONS ONLY!

The shortage is of nursing teachers not nurses. There are backlogs of caring Americans who want to work as nurses despite it's being a tough job. The hospitals do not pay enough and a lot drop out and do not come back. Unfortunately nursings schools pay nursing teachers even less.


There are industries in the United States producing items that we should be importing. If goods can not be produced with legal labor profitably they should not be here.

I know a young person who is very interested in nursing. She is 22 years old. She ggot involved with drugs at 19 years of age. She is now the mother of a two year old girl--is clean as a whistle--is a dental assistant. She would love to become a nurse. She cannot. She has a felony conviction.
America, the land of second chances--at one time--no more.

I do understand the risk--I do not agree with penalizing a crime dealing with drugs with a life sentence. We need to get into our young American market.
Among many reasons why those in charge will not do it, is because these young folks, convictions or not, want a decent wage.