How to Fix Nation's Broken Immigration System
The current immigration system
is badly broken and needs a comprehensive overhaul. The Obama
administration has put immigration reform on the legislative agenda
this year by calling for a new system that “controls immigration and
makes it an orderly system.” The White House also says such a plan
should include a path to legal status for undocumented workers.
A new report released today by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI)
lays out an approach to fixing the system in a way that protects the
rights of all workers. Written by former Labor Secretary Ray Marshall,
this approach already has been adopted by both the AFL-CIO and Change to Win.
Marshall told a Capitol Hill press conference this morning:
Current immigration laws subject foreign workers to
grave risks, exploitation, and uncertain futures, while depressing
wages and working conditions for all workers. This framework addresses
these defects. All workers will benefit from these reforms.
The report, “Immigration for Shared Prosperity: A Framework for Comprehensive Reform,”‘
points out that the American economy has become dependent on foreign
labor. Indeed, most of our workforce growth since 1990 has come from
immigration. But, at the same time, according to the report:
The programs for admitting foreign workers for temporary
and permanent jobs are rigid, cumbersome, and inefficient; do too
little to protect the wages and working conditions of workers (foreign
or domestic); do not respond very well to employers’ needs; and give
almost no attention to adapting the number and characteristics of
foreign workers to domestic labor shortages.
Click here to download the report.
Marshall’s approach calls for the establishment of an independent
commission to monitor industry trends and labor needs for future
immigration. The commission, which would be established in two stages,
would improve the way labor market shortages are measured and put in
place procedures to efficiently adjust foreign labor flows to
employers’ needs while protecting domestic and foreign labor standards.
The approach also calls for:
- A secure and effective worker authorization mechanism. Border
control alone is not likely to be sufficient, the report says. At best,
40 percent of unauthorized border crossers are stopped. But even
completely successful border controls would not stop illegal
immigration because an estimated 40 percent to 45 percent? of these
immigrants have overstayed visas. So Marshall proposes that the
government complement border controls with a much more effective visa
enforcement system. - Rational operational control of the border. Because most
unauthorized immigrants enter the United States to work or join family
members who are working, the report proposes creating a secure
identifier issued by the federal government for immigrant workers with
biometric data and a unique work authorization number for each new job
based on individual PIN numbers. - Adjustment of status for the current undocumented population.
Rounding up and deporting millions of undocumented workers would
violate American values of fairness and due process, but also would be
impractical. Instead, providing a clear path to citizenship would raise
labor standards for all workers, the report says. - Improvement, not expansion, of temporary worker programs, limited to temporary or seasonal, not permanent, jobs. To prevent the well-documented abuse
of guest workers, Marshall recommends that there be a limit on the
period guest workers can work and that the use of these workers to
occupations the independent commission certifies have real, temporary
labor shortages and there have been good-faith efforts to recruit
domestic workers.
Sign up for the OV Daily Newsletter
OV Social
Excuse me for popping your bubble, but you folks at the AFL-CIO are not being completely honest about immigration reform. First of all let me state that I am a union member, and when the AFL-CIO came out a few years back about immigration reform it was strictly to gain union members first and foremost. Secondly it was to swell the ranks of the Democratic Party which is the preferred choice of organized labor.
Economics dictate this push for with increased membership the coffers of organized labor will increase which translates into more money for the executives of these unions with little or no increases to the members pensions or health and welfare programs. Those items are part of the negotiations during renewal of labor contracts and is mostly paid by the employer.
There is no good faith effort to recruit domestic workers without some form of threat to the employer, and E-Verify does that perfectly if only the congress would mandate it for all employers. As it stands now all that is required is a Social Security Number or Tax Payer ID number, a Birth Certificate or other documentation such as DD 214, and a drivers license. All of these documents can be forged or stolen through identity theft and has been the case when the illegals are apprehended.
Lastly the effects of this Amnesty and path to citizenship would reduce the wages of our citizens as was the case with the Drywallers Union in the 70's.
The only true way to reform immigration policy is to enforce the law we now have and which we have not done in decades. The last amnesty resulted in an increase of illegal aliens. Mexico does not have that problem as they enforce a more stringent immigration policy while chiding our politicians that it is racist to enforce our own laws concerning illegal immigrants.