Thread: Work visas scarce for unskilled laborers

I don't know how these people can call themselves Americans or even look at themselves in a mirror! These people that aid these illegals should be deported with them!

http://www.wfaa.com/sharedcontent/dws/b ... 0e044.html

Work visas scarce for unskilled laborers

Immigration advocates say law doesn't address needs of U.S. economy

12:00 AM CST on Thursday, December 28, 2006

By DIANNE SOLÍS / The Dallas Morning News

T.W. Bailey Sr. is a North Texas homebuilder who values the dedicated and talented immigrants in his work crews.

One of them was Mario, a Mexican craftsman who could do just about any job on a construction site.

When Mr. Bailey discovered that Mario was in the country illegally, he wanted to help him. So Mr. Bailey, a lanky, white-haired builder who specializes in high-end homes, went to a lawyer to see if he could help Mario get a visa.

That's when the president of Bailey Family Builders ran into a little-understood roadblock to legal immigration for the millions of Mexicans and others who perform manual-labor jobs in the U.S.: Only 5,000 work visas are available every year for unskilled laborers.

"We don't have a system that recognizes the realities of the U.S. economy," said Mr. Bailey, president of the Home Builders Association of Dallas-Fort Worth.

The gap between the law and the economy was highlighted this month in the Swift & Co. meat plant raids, the largest immigration raids in history. And it was addressed in September by a bipartisan task force in Washington, which recommended greatly expanding the visa system.

The task force's report, the Democratic takeover of Congress and President Bush's renewed call last week for comprehensive legislation have given some proponents of immigration reform hope that a solution may be near – although they've been let down before.

"We think the prospects are good," said Angelo Amador, director of immigration policy at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

But incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., aimed her initial legislative priorities at the American middle class, with issues such as raising the minimum wage and cutting tax breaks to energy companies.

"She has indicated that comprehensive immigration reform will be a priority," said Drew Hammill, a spokeswoman for Ms. Pelosi. But the issue must go through a "messy" labyrinth of committee hearings, she added.

'Out of kilter'

Doris Meissner, former commissioner of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said people are often surprised to learn so few visas exist for those defined as "unskilled" and without relatives in the U.S. legally.

"There are only 5,000 visas in the system for people to come that way," said Ms. Meissner, now a senior fellow at the nonpartisan Migration Policy Institute. "There are probably 500,000 people added to the illegal population each year, and the large majority are unskilled. Things are so out of kilter."

Ms. Meissner directed the institute's task force, co-chaired by former U.S. Sen. Spencer Abraham, a Republican, and former Rep. Lee Hamilton, a Democrat. It was the fourth major task force to tackle immigration since 1981.

The group issued its report, titled Immigration and America's Future, in September. It notes that since the year 2000, there has been no net increase in native-born workers between the ages of 25 and 54.

In the future, net increases of workers will come from only two sources – older workers and immigrants, the report notes.

"This demographic picture is not one we have ever faced before in the nation," Ms. Meissner said.

"We could decide to have a smaller economy and just decide to run it off our native-born labor force," but that's an unlikely outcome, she said.

Divisive debate

Much of America's immigration debate gets argued at the extremes: deportation or amnesty, punishment or appeasement.

In the northern Dallas suburb of Farmers Branch last month, outside the tidy brick City Hall, demonstrators shouted at each other for several hours while the City Council took testimony on an ordinance to crack down on illegal immigrants.

Josh Sullivan held a sign that read: "Do It Legally – Or Go Home." With a megaphone of a voice, he yelled: "Illegal immigration is illegal!"

Mr. Sullivan, who does property title work for a living, said too many Americans are on welfare as it is. Guest worker visas aren't the solution, he said, even for jobs in meat plants or picking produce.

"I think the U.S. has the workers right here," he said.

But that's not Mr. Bailey's experience.

There simply aren't enough homegrown U.S. citizens to fill the construction jobs in the homebuilding industry, he said. And deportation of the illegal workforce would mean "a lot of production would literally stop," he said. "We need a program so that they could come in legally in the U.S."

His homebuilders association has had to ask local high schools to restart the vocational classes they had decades ago for carpentry and other construction skills.

"Years ago, there were a lot more people in the construction trade, and children would follow their fathers into the trades," he said. "But now, they say, everyone wants to go to college."

The group participated for a while in a program to hire first-time offenders, but funding for the program evaporated.

Push for more visas

Like many business groups, Mr. Bailey and the homebuilders want a larger pool of work visas.

The system, they say, discriminates against Mexican laborers who don't benefit from special work authorizations or "temporary protected status" because of natural disasters, or don't come from war-torn regions, or can't get a special H visa as registered nurses or engineers.

"It's stacked against Mexicans," said Dallas lawyer Angel Reyes. "If you are Argentine or Brazilian, you can manage through the system." And Cubans really have an easy slide through U.S. immigration law, he said.

Ms. Meissner's task force called for a restructuring of the chaotic visa system and stronger employment-based immigration policies.

Initially, the plan calls for:

• Temporary visas to be issued for short-term stays and work assignments.

• Provisional visas to allow employers to recruit foreign-born workers for permanent jobs and possible future immigration.

• And permanent immigration for those who graduate from provisional status.

The system initially would allow about 1.5 million visas a year.

Groups that oppose expanding the visa system, such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform, generally call for immigration to be tightly controlled and reduced to historical levels of around 300,000 a year.

In 2005, about 7.2 million unauthorized migrants worked in the U.S., accounting for about 4.9 percent of the civilian labor force, according to the Pew Hispanic Center.

Bush's proposal

In opposition to many of his fellow Republicans, Mr. Bush has advocated a guest worker program, in which millions of workers here illegally would be allowed to live in the country temporarily while they filled jobs that Americans didn't want.

In a news conference last week, Mr. Bush said, "I strongly believe that we can and must get a comprehensive immigration plan on my desk" in 2007.

Referring to the Swift raids, which also uncovered an identity theft ring, he said, "The system we have in place has caused people to rely upon smugglers and forgers in order to do work Americans aren't doing."

The Senate this year passed a comprehensive bill to set up a guest worker program. But a House bill focused instead on tightening the borders and cracking down on illegal immigrant workers. Many House Republicans are particularly opposed to any plan that legalizes those in the country illegally.

Mr. Amador of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce said the toughest battle will center on a guest worker provision to allow for the future flow of workers.

He said the 1986 overhaul of immigration policy, which gave amnesty to unauthorized workers and increased enforcement, failed because it didn't include such a provision. Illegal workers kept coming and were absorbed into labor markets.

Experts agree that the country has some other priorities and that any solution would have to come before August, when the 2008 presidential race will heat up.

"It is anybody's guess as to what could happen," said Ira Mehlman, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which opposes any amnesty for those here illegally. "I think the Democrats were elected to provide some solution to the Iraq situation, and that may be their primary focus in the first few months in power."

Seeking change

Mr. Bailey said his group will continue to press for reforms with Republicans such as Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Pete Sessions.

As for Mario, the construction worker, Mr. Bailey had to let him go, because he was here illegally. Mr. Bailey insists on adhering to the system he opposes.

Finding a way to legalize the construction worker was impossible because of the shortage of visas, the lawyer had told Mr. Bailey. Mario had already been deported once, which complicated the situation.

With demand high, Mario quickly found work elsewhere, despite his status.

Mr. Bailey said Mario called to let him know that he had found another job in the Dallas area and that his wife and children had left Mexico to join him in Texas.

"I told him I'd like to meet his family," Mr. Bailey said.

E-mail dsolis@dallasnews.com

And why should there be a larger number of visas for unskilled labor? The mischief done by the visas for skilled labor is harmful enough.

How to deal with the aging of our workforce? Allow people to remain working and productive longer, which many of them want to do, and stop forcing them out via mandatory retirements and age discrimination. Duh!

People generally start having children when they think that they can fford to do so with the same quality of life that hey were. This creates a disadvantage for Americans and a tremendous advantage for the Third World immigrants. The presence of the immigrants in a labor market can result in the inflation adjusted pay going down for jobs at the skill level that an American family had in their last generation. It also takes a lot of lo wage decline before a Third World immigrant faces the pay that their famiy had when they worked in their home country.

But incoming House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., aimed her initial legislative priorities at the American middle class, with issues such as raising the minimum wage and cutting tax breaks to energy companies.

"She has indicated that comprehensive immigration reform will be a priority," said Drew Hammill, a spokeswoman for Ms. Pelosi. But the issue must go through a "messy" labyrinth of committee hearings, she added.

If she truely cared about the middle class, she wouldn't even consider an amnesty for the 12-20 million illegals currently residing in the United States. It's all smoke and mirrors!

The politicians figure they can give us a little, and then when we're all content with those few extra bread crumbs - they'll turn around and steal the meat off our plate while we're not looking!