Senate Judiciary Farce - Part 2
Senate Judiciary Farce - Part 2
Date: Wednesday, July 27, 2005 6:54 PM
JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER
by Rob Sanchez
July 27, 2005 No. 1299
Strange things happened yesterday when the Senate Judiciary Committee on Immigration Reform convened. Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff were no-shows. So far there has been no explanation why Bush is snubbed the Senate. My guess is that Bush wants to downplay the two Senate bills proposed because he is about to push his own guest-worker/amnesty proposal. It would be wishful thinking to suppose that Bush is starting to get worried about the Republican revolt against his open-borders attitude and his schmoozing with Vicente Fox.
I have provided a few excerpts from the transcripts of the testimony that can be read in full at:
http://judiciary.senate.gov/hearing.cfm?id=1588
After the testimony I provided a Lou Dobbs transcript that discusses the Bush snub.
As expected, not a single speaker disputed the myth that there are large numbers of jobs that Americans won't do. Nobody acknowledged that the importation of cheap foreign labor has negative consequences, and all of them think that amnesty should be given to illegal aliens. The lack of diversity in the testimony is probably its most stunning characteristic because normally they would at least a token testifier to present the other side of the argument. These excerpts are my personal choices if their was a contest for statements that are totally false and offensive. There are many other offensive things these speakers have to say if you wish to read their full transcripts.
Hal Daub has to win the honors for the stupidest statement of the day. He said that their is a "shortage of both skilled and lesser skilled" workers." In other words, the U.S. has a shortage of every type of worker, that is unless there is something else besides skilled and lesser skilled.
The testimony of the four Senators that are proposing these bills isn't online yet. When it is available I'll present more excerpts.
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Senator Patrick Leahy
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I have said many times that I believe the McCain-Kennedy bill is the appropriate starting point for the Judiciary Committee to consider immigration reform. This bill recognizes that much of the nations economy depends on immigrant labor, and that some of those immigrants do not have legal status. The bill provides an opportunity for those workers to earn legal status. It contains border security and enforcement provisions.
The Cornyn-Kyl approach contains some troubling provisions that we must review carefully. It would authorize state and local police to enforce federal immigration laws, a policy that could undermine community policing efforts in immigrant communities.
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Senator Russ Feingold
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This is an issue that affects not only these workers, but American employers as well. The law should acknowledge the reality that American businesses need access to foreign workers for jobs they cannot fill with American workers.
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TAMAR JACOBY
Senior Fellow, Manhattan Institute
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In 1960, half of all American men dropped out of high school and went into the unskilled labor force. Today, less than 10 percent of American men drop out of high school - and we now need foreign workers to do the low-skilled, low-paying jobs these men used to do. The native-born American work force is aging; its shrinking. Todays young people aspire to work inside, with their minds not their muscles. And its good news for us that there are immigrants eager to come to our country to do the unskilled work that we need done.
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Hal Daub
President and CEO
American Health Care Association (AHCA) &
National Center For Assisted Living (NCAL)
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I am also here today on behalf of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition (EWIC), a broad-based coalition of businesses, trade associations, and other organizations from across the industry spectrum who are concerned with the shortage of both skilled and lesser skilled ("essential worker") labor.
Reform must begin by confronting the fact that many of the jobs being created by
Americas growing economy are jobs that American citizens simply are not filling - in
fact, these are jobs no one is filling. Our laws, therefore, should allow willing workers to
enter our country and fill this void.
The current temporary and permanent visa programs are insufficient and inadequate to
accommodate U.S. needs. The H-2B program for seasonal workers is narrowly defined
and has a Congressionally mandated cap that is arbitrarily set at 66,000 per year. The H-2A visa program for agricultural workers contains no numerical cap, but does not respond
quickly enough to the often rapid fluctuations in agricultural labor demand, and is thus
seldom used by employers. The permanent residence program provides approximately
5,000 slots annually for essential workers. Our current immigration system can not
handle our continuing need for foreign-born workers.
With a turnover rate for CNAs and personal
care workers in some of our skilled nursing facilities and assisted living residences close
to 100 percent, we find it illogical that an administrator must send his or her most senior,
qualified aide home after just two or three years simply because they were born in a
foreign country.
That key caregiver should be offered the opportunity to extend his/her stay and continue
to contribute to both the U.S. economy, and the care of our frail, elderly, and disabled.
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Gary Endelman
BP America Inc.
Immigration Law Group
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We need more green cards and fewer H1Bs. Congress should remove all numerical caps on the H but only allow for three years with no extensions.
There is no reason why real-time data cannot tell us what real-world labor shortages exist. Using the Bureau of Labor Statisticss occupational projections, the DOL should be able to tell us what occupations are in short supply. If BLS numbers indicate that the number of vacancies in any occupational category, when adjusted for regional or even metropolitan differences, will outpace the ability of the domestic labor pool to fill them, then grant the H-1B and allow that alien to apply for the green card without any further need to advertise the job or demonstrate the lack of qualified, willing or available Americans.
Remove any artificial caps on employment-based categories. When employers no longer need to hire, they will not need big brother to tell them not to. We do not need a law to encourage the hiring of Americans first. At the same time, make it much more expensive for those employers that do bring in immigrants. Both supporters and opponents of immigration must learn to trust the culture of capitalism and believe in its legitimacy.
We must stop thinking of immigration as a problem to be controlled and start thinking of it as an asset to be maximized. It makes no sense to have a system where, as Geoffrey Colvin writes in Fortune, if "Albert Einstein wanted to move in today but had no US relatives, hed have to get in line behind thousands of poorly educated manual laborers who did." America can do better. As Emerson reminded us in his address to the American Scholar, there is still time for discovery: "Come my friends, it is not too late to seek a newer world."
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http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0507/26/ldt.01.html
DOBBS: The Senate Judiciary Committee today held a critical hearing on immigration and fixing our broken borders. Incredibly, no one from the Bush administration responded to the committee's request to be there because the White House pulled its witnesses, two top cabinet members, at the very last minute.
Lisa Sylvester reports.
(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)
LISA SYLVESTER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): There are two competing immigration bills in the Senate. The legislative sponsors, Senators Kennedy, McCain, Kyl and Cornyn, all showed up to answer questions. And a slate of immigration experts were there.
But oddly absent, Labor Secretary Elaine Chao and Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff. Both were scheduled to attend, but pulled out before the hearing started.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter says immigration is too important an issue to put off. SEN. ARLEN SPECTER (R-PA), CHAIRMAN, JUDICIARY COMMMITTEE: We decided to go ahead with the hearing. We're going to do our work. And when the administration wants to chime in, we'll be ready to listen.
SYLVESTER: If the Senate Judiciary Committee could find time, even in the middle of the U.S. Supreme Court nomination buildup, why not the administration? One thought, the White House may not have been prepared to embrace either one of the bills.
The Cornyn-Kyl bill creates a guest worker program that would require illegal aliens return to their home country in order to be eligible. And it would have tough new workplace enforcement rules.
The McCain-Kennedy bill grants guest worker status to as many as 20 million illegal aliens, puts them on a path to get green cards, and increases immigration levels even further.
The two approaches point out a huge division within the Republican Party and within the administration.
STEVEN CAMAROTA, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES: On the one hand, they look at the public opinion polls. Most Americans want the law enforced. They would like a more moderate pace of immigration. But some very powerful interest groups, mainly the business community and the leadership of the ethnic lobbies, want more immigration and they want to legalize the illegal aliens. And the administration is simply torn between sort of public opinion and the interest groups.
SYLVESTER: Playing to the various audiences looks a lot like indecision.
(END VIDEOTAPE)
SYLVESTER: And we placed calls to the White House and the Labor Department to find out their explanation for not attending the hearing, but our calls were not returned.
The Homeland Security Department says it plans to testify at a later date. But today's hearing, DHS officials dismissed as a panel discussion -- Lou.
DOBBS: The Department of Homeland Security dismissed the Judiciary Committee as a panel discussion?
SYLVESTER: It is very confusing, their explanation, because it certainly looked like a hearing. You had senators asking questions. You had people testifying today. But the way they're phrasing this is that they say that it was a panel discussion.
DOBBS: Well, let me offer a personal opinion and give the Department of Homeland Security something to think about. The Department of Homeland Security is running nothing more than a sham in what it calls border security in this nation, and perhaps ought to be paying attention to panel discussions certainly with one of the most powerful branches of what is a three-branch government in this country. Lisa Sylvester. Thank you very much.
While the White House didn't bother to show up for that hearing today, its immigration policy is decidedly clear. That policy is straightforward: break U.S. immigration laws, and the benefits of American citizenship are all yours.
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