DOCSLIB.ORG

Immigration Reform: What's Next for Agriculture?

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Immigration Reform: What's Next for Agriculture? Immigration Reform: What’s Next for Agriculture? Philip Martin arm labor was a major concern the employer saw work-identification of agriculture in the early 1980s, documents. Employers are not required About 5% of U.S. workers, and over when enforcement of immigra- to determine the authenticity of the 50% of the workers employed on F tion laws involved the Border Patrol documents presented by workers. U.S. crop farms are unauthorized. driving into fields and attempting to There were two legalization pro- This article explains how immigration apprehend workers who ran away. grams in 1987–88 that allowed 2.7 reforms in the past increased the availability of unauthorized farm Apprehended migrants were normally million unauthorized foreigners, 85% workers, allowing employers to returned to Mexico, and many made of whom were Mexicans, to become become complacent about farm their way back to the farms on which legal immigrants. The nonfarm pro- labor. However, federal government they were employed within days. There gram legalized 1.6 million unauthor- audits of employers, and more states were no fines on employers who know- ized foreigners who had been in the requiring employers to use the federal ingly hired unauthorized workers, and United States since January 1, 1982, E-Verify database to check the legal the major enforcement risk was loss of while the Special Agricultural Worker status of new hires, have increased production until unauthorized work- (SAW) program legalized 1.1 mil- worries about the cost and availability ers returned. As a result, perishable lion unauthorized foreigners. of farm workers. crops, such as citrus, that were picked Unauthorized workers continued largely by labor contractor crews to arrive in the early 1990s and pre- included more unauthorized workers sented false documents to get hired, than lettuce crews that included work- that is, forged documents or documents ers hired directly by large growers. that belonged to work-authorized per- The Immigration Reform and Con- sons. As a result, employers faced less trol Act (IRCA) of 1986 imposed federal risk of disrupted production because sanctions on employers who know- the paper chase involved in checking ingly hired unauthorized workers. In whether documents were genuine did order to avoid fines and criminal sanc- not immediately remove unauthor- tions, all newly hired workers must ized workers from the workplace as present documents to their employers had Border Patrol worker chases. to establish their identity and right Figure 1 shows that newly legal- to work. The employer and worker ized SAW farm workers were one- complete and sign an I-9 form attest- third of the crop work force in the ing that the worker presented and early 1990s, but found nonfarm jobs Figure 1. SAWs Down, Unauthorized Up 60 50 40 Immigration Reform and Control Act Enacted National Agricultural Workers Survey Begins 30 SAW (2-year Moving Average) Producing specialty crops, such as pears Unauthorized (2-year Moving Average) Percent of Workers of Percent 20 pictured above, involves large numbers of immigrant farm workers to fill seasonal jobs. 10 0 1985 1986 1989 1991 1992 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2004 1987 1988 1990 1993 2000 2001 2002 2003 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 Year Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics • University of California 5 experienced employees who are dif- Figure 2. Unauthorized Share of Foreign-Born Residents by State ficult to replace. Gebbers Farms in Washington fired hundreds of work- ers after an I-9 audit and replaced them with legal H-2A guest workers. State Laws With Congress deadlocked on immi- gration, states such as Arizona enacted laws to reduce the number of unau- thorized foreigners in an “attrition through enforcement” strategy. Arizona enacted the Support Our Law Enforce- ment and Safe Neighborhoods Act (SB 1070) in April 2010—a law that U.S.: 28% of foreign-born are unauthorized (2010) requires everyone to carry proof of Highest: 40-56% are unauthorized (19) their legal status and show this proof High: 30-38% are unauthorized (9) to police officers who stop them for Lower: 21-28% are unauthorized (11) other reasons. Unauthorized foreign- Source: Passel and Cohn, 2011, based on March 2010 CPS Lowest: Less than 20% are unauthorized (12) ers detected by police can be fined as the economy improved in the mid- 80% of tentative nonconfirmations $2,500 or jailed up to six months. 1990s. The U.S. Department of Labor’s result in the employee quitting, likely The Obama administration asked National Agricultural Worker Survey because the worker was unauthorized. a federal court to block implementa- first found that over half of the work- At the end of 2011, all federal tion of SB 1070, arguing that federal ers employed on U.S. crop farms were contractors and 18 states required immigration law prevents Arizona unauthorized in 1995, and the share some or all of their employers to use from enacting a state law that interferes of unauthorized crop workers has E-Verify to check new hires. The with federal immigration enforcement remained at about half since then. U.S. Supreme Court upheld Ari- priorities and could lead to the arrest zona’s Legal Arizona Workers Act of U.S. citizens and foreigners law- Federal E-Verify and I-9 Audits in May 2011, which requires all of fully in the United States who are not In 1996 Congress required the then Arizona’s employers to participate in carrying proof of their legal status. Immigration and Naturalization Ser- E-Verify. Most major meatpackers A federal judge agreed and issued vice to develop programs to check the have been using E-Verify for at least an injunction blocking implementa- validity of worker documents. These a decade. The House Judiciary Com- tion of the key provisions of SB 1070. programs evolved into E-Verify, the mittee approved the Legal Workforce However, a Pew poll in May 2010 current Internet-based system that Act (LWA)(HR 2164) in September found 59% support for SB 1070, employers used to check on the legal 2011 to require all U.S. employers to including two-thirds who support status of almost 16 million new hires use E-Verify to check new hires and/ requiring people to present proof in fiscal year (FY) 2010, about 30% of or job applicants within four years. of legal status to police if asked. the 50 million to 60 million new hires Today the federal government Arizona and other states that enacted made each year in the United States. enforces laws against hiring unauthor- attrition-through-enforcement immi- Employers submit Social Security ized workers by auditing the I-9 forms gration laws have mostly unauthor- numbers and immigration data to completed by newly hired workers ized foreign-born residents. Figure 2 E-Verify, and over 98% of their inqui- and their employers. Most work- shows that a band of states that trace ries result in workers being confirmed ers identified as having problematic a U-shape, from Idaho through the as work-authorized in less than five documentation quit or are terminated, southern states to North Carolina, has seconds. Employees with “tentative prompting denunciations of so-called the highest share of unauthorized for- nonconfirmations” are given a writ- “silent raids” aimed at unauthorized eigners among foreign-born residents ten notice advising them to correct workers. Some employers, such as in the state. About 28% of foreign-born their records so that E-Verify shows L. E. Cooke in Visalia, complain that persons in the United States in 2010 them to be authorized to work. Over I-9 audits require them to terminate were unauthorized, but 40% or more 6 Giannini Foundation of Agricultural Economics • University of California workers who responded to the job Table 1. Average Annual Employment on Crop Farms, 2001–2010 offer were not hired. In many cases, U.S. Crop CA Crop U.S. CA Total Total U.S. workers seeking farm jobs want Year Farms Farms Support Support U.S. CA to go to work right away, not 30 days 2001 563,580 189,192 274,652 156,136 838,232 345,328 in the future, so many U.S. workers 2002 555,075 186,335 266,888 151,334 821,963 337,669 who are hired do not show up when the employer calls them to go to work. 2003 555,926 184,247 270,101 156,615 826,027 340,862 Employers must offer the higher 2004 555,437 178,844 268,106 153,778 823,543 332,622 of the federal or state minimum wage, 2005 548,715 177,003 280,336 166,012 829,051 343,015 the prevailing wage in the area, or the adverse effect wage rate (AEWR)—the 2006 540,682 172,267 283,589 169,717 824,271 341,984 average hourly earnings of crop and 2007 538,528 172,222 287,457 175,985 825,985 348,207 livestock workers reported by farm 2008 536,507 174,697 290,855 178,862 827,362 353,559 employers to USDA’s NASS during the previous year. The AEWR, which 2009 531,096 170,041 279,642 166,885 810,738 336,926 ranges from $9 to $12 an hour, is usu- 2010 528,867 170,068 287,480 177,168 816,347 347,236 ally the highest of the three wages. In addition to offering the higher- 2009-10 -46,703 -27,271 19,205 28,808 -27,498 1,537 –2001-02 than-minimum wage AEWR, farmers % Change -6% -11% 5% 11% -2% 0% seeking DOL certification to employ Source: Quarterly Census of Employment and Wages H-2A workers must offer free and approved housing to out-of-area of the foreign-born residents in states the Secure Communities program, U.S.
Load more

Recommended publications
  • Arizona's SB 1070 As a National Lightning
    S.B 1070 as a National Lightning Rod Arizona’s S.B. 1070 as a National Lightning Rod CYNTHIA BURNS* The passage of Arizona’s Senate Bill 1070 in 2010, called the Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act, has unleashed a political debate on illegal immigration in our country. This contentious State Bill, SB 1070, authorized law enforcers to identify, prosecute and deport illegal immigrants. Anti-immigration advocates hailed the bill for its tough stance on illegal immigration whereas proponents of immigration reform derided the law for its potential to discriminate Hispanic communities. Additionally, the bill created a rift between state and federal government on immigration reform, primarily raised questions about states right to write its own immigration laws preempting federal power. This has resulted in legal cases challenging the constitutionality of the law in the Federal Courts. The legal question raised by Arizona’s immigration law, SB 1070, was if states, Arizona in this case, had the purview to pass immigration legislation believed to be preempted by the authority granted by the Constitution to the federal government. In a split decision, the United States Supreme Court, in Arizona v United States, struck down three of the four challenged provisions of the bill for interfering with federal policy and remanded one-the provision authorizing police to check alien registration papers- to the lower courts. The Supreme Court ruling garnered national headlines particularly the provision in S.B. 1070’s Section 3 that created a state misdemeanor for the “willful failure to complete or carry an alien registration document” (S.
    [Show full text]
  • IMMIGRATION PREEMPTION AFTER UNITED STATES V. ARIZONA
    Johnson & Spiro Final.docx (DO NOT DELETE)1/22/2013 5:14 PM DEBATE IMMIGRATION PREEMPTION AFTER UNITED STATES v. ARIZONA OPENING STATEMENT Preemption of State and Local Immigration Laws Remains Robust KIT JOHNSON† Many people, frustrated with what they believe to be a failure of the federal government to police the nation’s borders, have sought to leverage state and local laws to do what the federal government has not: get tough on undocumented migrants. The primary stumbling block for these attempts is federal preemption as the “[p]ower to regulate immigration is unquestionably exclusively a federal power.” DeCanas v. Bica, 424 U.S. 351, 354 (1976). This June, in a victory for local movements against undocumented immigration, the Supreme Court held that federal law did not preempt an Arizona law requiring police to “make a ‘reasonable attempt . to deter- mine the immigration status of any person they stop, detain, or arrest’” whenever they reasonably believe the person is “unlawfully present in the United States.” Arizona v. United States, 132 S. Ct. 2492, 2507 (2012) (quoting Ariz. Rev. Stat. Ann. § 11-1051(B) (2012)). The task now falls to lower courts to apply Arizona to the myriad other state and local laws coming down the pike. The en banc Fifth Circuit is presently considering whether a Dallas suburb may use a scheme of “occu- pancy licenses” to prevent undocumented immigrants from living in rental housing within city limits. See Villas at Parkside Partners v. City of Farmers † Associate Professor, University of Oklahoma College of Law; J.D., 2000, University of California, Berkeley, School of Law.
    [Show full text]
  • A Study on Immigrant Activism, Secure Communities, and Rawlsian Civil Disobedience Karen J
    Marquette Law Review Volume 100 Article 8 Issue 2 Winter 2016 A Study on Immigrant Activism, Secure Communities, and Rawlsian Civil Disobedience Karen J. Pita Loor Boston University School of Law Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr Part of the Immigration Law Commons Repository Citation Karen J. Pita Loor, A Study on Immigrant Activism, Secure Communities, and Rawlsian Civil Disobedience, 100 Marq. L. Rev. 565 (2016). Available at: http://scholarship.law.marquette.edu/mulr/vol100/iss2/8 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Journals at Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in Marquette Law Review by an authorized editor of Marquette Law Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. 38800-mqt_100-2 Sheet No. 140 Side A 02/22/2017 09:25:38 LOOR-P.DOCX (DO NOT DELETE) 2/16/17 12:32 PM A STUDY ON IMMIGRANT ACTIVISM, SECURE COMMUNITIES, AND RAWLSIAN CIVIL DISOBEDIENCE KAREN J. PITA LOOR ABSTRACT This Article explores the immigrant acts of protest during the Obama presidency in opposition to the Secure Communities (SCOMM) immigration enforcement program through the lens of philosopher John Rawls’ theory of civil disobedience and posits that this immigrant resistance contributed to that administration’s dismantling the federal program by progressively moving localities, and eventually whole states, to cease cooperation with SCOMM. The controversial SCOMM program is one of the most powerful tools of immigration enforcement in the new millennium because it transforms any contact with state and local law enforcement into a potential immigration investigation.
    [Show full text]
  • Outsourcing Immigration Compliance
    GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works Faculty Scholarship 2009 Outsourcing Immigration Compliance Eleanor Marie Brown George Washington University Law School, [email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/faculty_publications Part of the Law Commons Recommended Citation Brown, Eleanor Marie, "Outsourcing Immigration Compliance" (2009). GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works. 251. https://scholarship.law.gwu.edu/faculty_publications/251 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Faculty Scholarship at Scholarly Commons. It has been accepted for inclusion in GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works by an authorized administrator of Scholarly Commons. For more information, please contact [email protected]. Harvard University Law School Public Law & Legal Theory Research Paper No. 08-12 ~and~ Harvard University Law School Program on Risk Regulation Research Paper No. 08-7 Outsourcing Immigration Compliance Eleanor Marie Brown Harvard Law School Eleanor Marie Lawrence Brown1 1 Reginald F. Lewis Fellow, Harvard Law School, Former Chairman of the Jamaica Trade Board, Former Law Clerk to the Honorable Patricia Wald (ret.), U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia, Former Law Clerk to the Honorable Keith Ellison, U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas, J.D., Yale (1999), M.Phil. Politics, Oxford (1997) (Rhodes Scholar). The genesis of this article was a conversation with a guest worker who drew an analogy between group accountability in the guest worker program that is the subject of this study and micro- lending in programs modeled on the Nobel prize-winning Grameen bank. This work was supported by a grant from the Reginald Lewis Foundation at Harvard Law School.
    [Show full text]
  • The Recruitment and Employment of Temporary Foreign Labor Hearing
    PROTECTING U.S. AND GUEST WORKERS: THE RECRUITMENT AND EMPLOYMENT OF TEMPORARY FOREIGN LABOR HEARING BEFORE THE COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES ONE HUNDRED TENTH CONGRESS FIRST SESSION HEARING HELD IN WASHINGTON, DC, JUNE 7, 2007 Serial No. 110–45 Printed for the use of the Committee on Education and Labor ( Available on the Internet: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/congress/house/education/index.html U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE 35–665 PDF WASHINGTON : 2007 For sale by the Superintendent of Documents, U.S. Government Printing Office Internet: bookstore.gpo.gov Phone: toll free (866) 512–1800; DC area (202) 512–1800 Fax: (202) 512–2104 Mail: Stop IDCC, Washington, DC 20402–0001 VerDate 0ct 09 2002 17:25 Mar 13, 2008 Jkt 000000 PO 00000 Frm 00001 Fmt 5011 Sfmt 5011 G:\DOCS\110TH\FC\110-45\35665.TXT HBUD1 PsN: DICK COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR GEORGE MILLER, California, Chairman Dale E. Kildee, Michigan, Vice Chairman Howard P. ‘‘Buck’’ McKeon, California, Donald M. Payne, New Jersey Ranking Minority Member Robert E. Andrews, New Jersey Thomas E. Petri, Wisconsin Robert C. ‘‘Bobby’’ Scott, Virginia Peter Hoekstra, Michigan Lynn C. Woolsey, California Michael N. Castle, Delaware Rube´n Hinojosa, Texas Mark E. Souder, Indiana Carolyn McCarthy, New York Vernon J. Ehlers, Michigan John F. Tierney, Massachusetts Judy Biggert, Illinois Dennis J. Kucinich, Ohio Todd Russell Platts, Pennsylvania David Wu, Oregon Ric Keller, Florida Rush D. Holt, New Jersey Joe Wilson, South Carolina Susan A. Davis, California John Kline, Minnesota Danny K. Davis, Illinois Cathy McMorris Rodgers, Washington Rau´ l M.
    [Show full text]
  • IACHR.Complaint.2020.09.30 FINAL
    Before the INTER-AMERICAN COMMISSION ON HUMAN RIGHTS Family Members of Sergio Adrián Hernández Güereca, Jorge Alfredo Solis Palma, Guillermo Arévalo Pedraza, Jesus Alfredo Yañez Reyes, José Antonio Elena Rodríguez, and Juan Pablo Pérez Santillán, Petitioners v. United States, Respondent. COMPLAINT September 30, 2020 Submitted on Behalf of Petitioners by Steve D. Shadowen, Tina J. Miranda, Matthew C. Weiner, Nicholas W. Shadowen Hilliard Shadowen LLP 1135 W. 6th St. Suite 125 Austin, TX 78704 Robert C. Hilliard, Marion M. Reilly Hilliard Martinez Gonzalez LLP 719 Shoreline Blvd., Corpus Christi, TX 78401 Cristóbal M. Galindo 4151 Southwest Pkwy, Suite 602 Houston, TX 77027 Gerald Singleton, Brody McBride Singleton Law Firm, APC 450 A St., 5th Floor San Diego, CA 92101 Roberto C. Montiel Roberto C. Montiel Office, PLLC 571 N. Grand Avenue Nogales, Arizona 85621 Luis Fernando Parra, Esq. Parra Law Offices, PLLC 571 North Grand Avenue Nogales, Arizona 85621 TABLE OF CONTENTS I. STATEMENT OF THE CASE ........................................................................................ 3 II. STATEMENT OF THE FACTS ..................................................................................... 9 A. The United States’ Unlawful Rocking Policy ..........................................................9 1. Background: Economic Opportunism and Nativism ...................................9 2. Background: 9/11 and Militarization .........................................................11 3. The United States’ Acknowledgements of the Rocking
    [Show full text]
  • Overview of Congressman Mike Pence's (R-IN) “Pence Plan
    Overview of Congressman Mike Pence’s (R-IN) “Pence Plan” Recently the White House invited Rep. Pence (R-IN) to discuss the Congressman’s immigration plan, dubbed the “Pence Plan.” Rep. Pence, a leading conservative in the House is a leading proponent of the House’s bill, H.R. 4437. In realizing that there were drastic differences between the House and Senate bill and what the President envisions, the Representative designed his own immigration reform proposal which he explained in detail last week to the President and Vice President Cheney. One of the pillars of the Representative’s program is the requirement that all illegal depart the U.S. briefly and then re-enter. This is similar to the “touch-base” proposal that has surfaced before. Another cornerstone of the proposal is that private employment agencies would be established overseas to process the applications of those applying to return to the U.S. through the guest worker program. As noted by Rep. Pence, "I believe it's amnesty if you can get right with the law by paying a fine but never have to go home." Timeline and Triggers In short, the bill has 3 main phases: 1. secure the U.S. border; 2. upon successfully securing the border, put in place a guest worker program that will efficiently provide American employers with willing guest workers who come to America legally; and 3. enforce tough employer sanctions that ensure a full partnership between the business community and the federal government in the enforcement of our laws on immigration and guest workers.
    [Show full text]
  • January 29, 2014 To: House Republican Colleagues From: Ranking Member Jeff Sessions
    MEMO: IMMIGRATION AND THE GOP AGENDA JANUARY 29, 2014 TO: HOUSE REPUBLICAN COLLEAGUES FROM: RANKING MEMBER JEFF SESSIONS President Obama—after five years of openly and aggressively defying federal immigration law—is now demanding that House Republicans adopt an immigration plan he has no intention of enforcing. Republicans must end the lawlessness—not surrender to it—and they must defend the legitimate interests of millions of struggling American workers. Attached to this memo are the key findings from my staff on the Budget and Judiciary Committees regarding the negative impact that the immigration proposals moving through Congress would have on American workers, taxpayers, and the rule of law. You will also find objective polling data—not misleading polls from special interests—demonstrating the depth to which these measures are repudiated by working and middle class voters from all backgrounds. And finally, included is a summary document of the opposition from conservative thought leaders to the proposals under consideration. Where We Stand Coordinating with a small group of the nation’s most powerful special interests, last year President Obama and Senate Democrats forced through an immigration bill which can only be described as a hammer blow to the American middle class. Not only would it grant work permits to millions of illegal immigrants at a time of record joblessness, it would also double the annual flow of new immigrant workers and provide green cards to more than 30 million permanent residents over the next decade. These new workers, mostly lesser-skilled, will compete for jobs in every sector, industry, and occupation in the U.S.
    [Show full text]
  • Roy Beck U.S. Economy, U.S. Workers, and Immigration Reform
    Testimony of Roy Beck Author and Executive Director of NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation On U.S. Economy, U.S. Workers, And Immigration Reform Before The Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security, and International Law JUDICIARY COMMITTEE U.S. House of Representatives May 3, 2007 U.S. Economy, U.S. Workers, And Immigration Reform May 3, 2007 Madame Chairwoman, Ranking Member King, Members of the Subcommittee, thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today to talk about immigration policy and its effect on American workers, one of the two subjects that has dominated my attention as an author and journalist for the past two decades. The topic of this hearing was addressed through years of exploration by the bi-partisan U.S. Commission on Immigration Reform, chaired by the late Barbara Jordan, and including other luminaries such as Michael Teitelbaum and the late Richard Estrada. As it happened, I was commissioned by W.W. Norton & Co. during precisely that mid-1990s period to research and write a book on this same topic. The Jordan Commission began issuing its reports just as I had sent my final manuscripts to New York. I was surprised and pleased to see the Commission making many of the major recommendations that I had included in my own book’s conclusions, and for largely the same reasons, including the Commission’s principle that immigration policy needed to: “… help mitigate potential negative impacts, particularly on disadvantaged U.S. workers.” For the last decade, I have had the privilege of educating about those recommendations that came from the final act of public service of Barbara Jordan’s long and illustrious career.
    [Show full text]
  • Temporary Work Visa Programs and the Need for Reform a Briefing on Program Frameworks, Policy Issues and Fixes, and the Impact of COVID-19
    Temporary work visa programs and the need for reform A briefing on program frameworks, policy issues and fixes, and the impact of COVID-19 Report • By Daniel Costa • February 3, 2021 • Washington, DC View this report at epi.org/217871 SECTIONS Updated Feb. 8, 2021 1. Introduction • 2 What this report finds: Although the Trump administration slashed 2. Time for a new grand humanitarian pathways and actively sought to reduce immigration bargain: The broader from family and diversity green card categories, the number of political context of migrant workers employed in the United States through temporary temporary work visa work visa programs increased during the Trump presidency, to over 2 programs and million. This represents an increase of 13% from the last year of the comprehensive Obama administration and showcases the reliance of U.S. employers immigration reform • 3 on the programs and the political support for them even by politicians 3. The basics: What are who actively seek to restrict other immigration pathways. Many of the temporary work visa temporary migrant workers employed in these visa programs are in programs? • 5 jobs deemed essential during the COVID-19 pandemic, but they have not been afforded adequate protections. These migrant workers have 4. The numbers in limited rights and face challenges including illegal recruitment fees context: Temporary and debt bondage, lower wages, employment that ties them to a work visa programs single employer, lack of protections in the workplace, family grew under Trump, separation, and no path to permanent residence or citizenship. while permanent However, their needs and the realities of their situation—as well as pathways shrunk • 11 how to improve it—are not well understood, even by mainstream 5.
    [Show full text]
  • Abc National Immigration Position
    ABC NATIONAL IMMIGRATION POSITION INTRODUCTION: Associated Builders and Contractors (ABC) supports the reform of U.S. Immigration Policy to facilitate a sustainable workforce for the American economy while ensuring our national security and prosperity. Legal immigrants currently do and have for a long time played a vital role in our construction workforce. Once the economy is restored, the construction industry will face an ever growing problem of shortages, both of craft-professionals and legal laborers who have difficulty becoming citizens or obtaining the necessary work permits. The overall process to obtain legal eligibility in the U.S. is slow and cumbersome. ABC supports a more streamlined and expedited process to make the pathway to citizenship more efficient. OVERVIEW: A. Security Element Homeland Security can best succeed where individuals are truly identifiable. It is to the advantage of all security programs for the United States to provide a means to safely encourage non-U.S. citizens to register with their true identities. Thus, any significant immigration reform policy must contain that element. Further, without significant improvements to border security and the enforcement of immigration laws, a guest worker program is destined to failure. B. Impact of the Immigration Policy on the Construction Industry When the economy has restored, there will be a need for workers, primarily for small businesses. Elimination of an immigrant workforce is not an option. Construction, among many U.S. industries, would come to a halt without the existence of this workforce. Even more significantly, construction will be limited in growth without an increase in the number of available immigrant workers.
    [Show full text]
  • H-2A and H-2B Temporary Worker Visas: Policy and Related Issues
    H-2A and H-2B Temporary Worker Visas: Policy and Related Issues Updated June 9, 2020 Congressional Research Service https://crsreports.congress.gov R44849 H-2A and H-2B Temporary Worker Visas: Policy and Related Issues Summary Certain foreign workers, sometimes referred to as guest workers, may be admitted to the United States to perform temporary labor under two temporary worker visas: the H-2A visa for agricultural workers and the H-2B visa for nonagricultural workers. The H-2A visa is not subject to any numerical limitations, while the H-2B visa is subject to a statutory annual cap of 66,000. H-2A and H-2B workers fill jobs that do not require much formal education. H-2A workers perform seasonal or temporary agricultural labor. They also engage in range herding and livestock production. H-2B workers perform temporary jobs in a variety of fields including landscaping, meat and seafood processing, and construction. The H-2A and H-2B programs are administered by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Labor (DOL). These agencies and the Department of State (DOS) have made adjustments, and in the case of DHS issued H-2A and H-2B temporary final rules, related to guest worker visas in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Statutory and regulatory provisions establish processes for bringing in workers under the H-2A and H-2B programs that are intended to protect similarly employed U.S. workers. As an initial step in the process, a prospective H-2A or H-2B employer must apply for DOL labor certification to ensure that U.S.
    [Show full text]