By Robert Preuss, news
editor
WASHINGTON, DC — Cleaning service professionals
who may be considering future employment of workers under President
Bush's recent proposal may be looking at a plan similar in
administration to the H2-B visa program already in place, but much
broader, an immigration law specialist agreed Thursday.
For cleaning pros, stronger enforcement of
immigration and employment laws may be a key component of such a
plan.
Bush outlined only general principles of immigration
reform in a call to Congress for a new, broad, guest worker program
January 7.
The White House offered few specifics, MM Siskind
but did say that
enforcement against companies that break the law and hire illegal
workers would increase under such a plan.
"If you're
employing illegals now you're putting your business in jeopardy,"
Greg Siskind of Siskind Susser, Memphis, TN, an attorney
specializing in immigration law, told CM e-News Daily on
Thursday.
"If they're hiring illegal immigrants it's in large
part because their backs are against the wall."
Siskind
agreed that, as details are yet to be hammered out by Congress at
President Bush's urging, only certain assumptions could be made
about what will be required of employers and how such a plan would
operate.
"I presume that will be the case," Siskind said when
asked if such a plan would likely resemble existing guest worker
programs. "It would probably operate in a manner similar to the H2-B
visa, which has been around for a long time but has the 'temporary
in nature' restriction. Immigration lawyers have said for a long
time that tweaking the H2-B program would make it available to
people coming in for permanent jobs. So that looks like what he's
largely proposed, but H2-B has a 60,000 cap; this may have no
cap."
It may also be somewhat similar to programs outlined in
pending bills by US Senator John Cornyn (R-Texas) June 16, 2003, and
US Senator John McCain (R-Arizona), July 25 which resemble H2-B in
many respects.
One assumption is that the Office of Homeland
Security will provide oversight and the US Department of Labor will
administer the program.
One of the issues may be such a
plan's language concerning wages.
The Cornyn initiative,
which would create a "W" visa category, seeks to determine the
permissible number of guest workers in any region based on Labor
Department Data.
Under a broad plan which could emerge in
Congress, US employers may be asked to:
- Show that they cannot find American workers (they must, under
H2-B, show that the job is temporary in nature)
The US Labor Department
could be required to attest that there are not sufficient workers
able, willing and qualified and available immediately to perform
the job in the employer's petition.
This could be done by
region, state, etc.
Furthermore, H-2B requires that
employers advertise for positions to American workers.
- Attest that the wages and working conditions won't adversely
affect the wages and working conditions of workers in the United
States
- File an attestation describing the nature and location of the
work, the anticipated period for which the worker will be needed,
the wages to be paid and the method of transportation, if
needed
Penalties could be set by number of counts of
violations within a period. For example, a 10-year debarment for
using the program if an employer violates the rules on three counts
within three consecutive years, etc.
Employees may or may not
be reassigned to another employer if they file a complaint to the
Secretary of Homeland Security.
Additional penalties may come
in the form of fines, etc.
The president on January 7 called
for Congress to hammer out details of a new, broad proposal that may
or may not include a cap on numbers of immigrants; Bush did say that
guest workers should be limited to a maximum three-year
period.
Fees?
"I think that's part of the detail that
we want to encourage the Congress in engaging in, in healthy
debate," a senior administration official, referring to application
fees, told members of the press in a pre-announcement briefing
January 6.
The official noted that employers will sponsor
workers. In a hypothetical situation, the official said, an employer
already employing an undocumented worker could keep that
worker for the three years of the program.
The White House
outlined principles of immigration reform, including the stipulation
that would-be employers of immigrants demonstrate a lack of
Americans to take the jobs.
Political observer Ben Shapiro
(Townhall.com) pointed out that, if many newly
legal workers began working at union wage rates, employers would be
forced to seek undocumented illegal immigrants willing to work for
less; those workers who joined the Bush program would soon lose
their jobs to those not subject to labor laws.
In that view,
beefed-up enforcement and penalities could be of tremendous
significance in a guest worker plan.
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