Last week, Congressman Tom Tancredo (R-CO) introduced a guest worker bill that is intended to ensure border security through additional Border Patrol, Bureau of Customs and Border Protection, and Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.

Tancredo, Chairman of the Immigration Reform Caucus, announced that the Border Enforcement and Revolving Employment to Assist Laborers (BE REAL) Act of 2003 “is beneficial to both the United States and to those seeking better economic opportunity from their home countries.” 

Tancredo said in a press release that BE REAL Act would provide a true guest worker program for immigrants while allowing all industries the ability to hire as many temporary legal immigrants as necessary.

In addition to adding more border agents and facilities, the bill prohibits agents from engaging in racial profiling. However, they may consider such factors as mannerisms, appearance, language, behavior and location.  In a further effort curb immigration violations, the BE REAL Act will increase the civil and criminal penalties for overstaying visas by 30 days or more, document fraud and false claims of citizenship.  All visa waiver programs would be suspended until DHS certifies to Congress that an automated entry-exit system is fully implemented and functional, all ports of entry have functional biometric machine readers and all participating countries issue machine-readable, biometric passports.

In order to remove the incentives to illegal migration, Tancredo’s bill requires the Secretary of DHS to create a national mandatory electronic employment eligibility verification system and to use such verification as a defense against employer sanctions.  Employers would be required to obtain either a social security number or an alien number from each new hire.

The BE REAL Act calls for a guest worker program that would replace all current H nonimmigrant visa with a single H nonimmigrant visa for immigrants coming to the United States temporarily to perform skilled or unskilled work for which no U.S. citizens or legal permanent residents are available or qualified.  The guest worker program would also require that the Department of Labor create an Internet-based job posting system to which all U.S. employment agencies and businesses may acquire password-protected access so that they can post available jobs on the system.  The Department of Labor would be prohibited from approving any labor certification applications in any industry and geographic region if the unemployment rate exceeds five percent and the percentage of new hires who are H non-immigrants exceeds 15 percent.

The guest worker program would go into effect only after the Secretary of the DHS approves all prerequisites, including that both the entry-exit system and the electronic employment verification system are fully implemented and functional.