Colorado Springs Immigration reform without some sort of guest-worker program would be devastating, leaders from the state’s lodging, landscaping, mining and restaurant industries told U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez on Monday.
Gutierrez was in Colorado for a roundtable meeting to talk about the need for comprehensive immigration reform with 18 people at the Broadmoor Hotel. He held a similar event a month ago in Atlanta to talk about President Bush’s plan for strengthened border security, a temporary foreign-worker program and a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Gutierrez said that he hears from business owners across the country who are desperate to fill jobs that American citizens either don’t want to do or aren’t available to do.
“It’s almost like the choice that we’re giving American business is either go out of business or hire someone illegally,” Gutierrez said.
He said that the way to make the nation safer is to secure it from the inside, through a guest-worker program.
“We have the technology today to have a biometric card that can’t be forged, that can’t be tampered with,” he said. “And what will happen is, employers will know what kind of a permit they should ask for, and over time, workers will know that if they don’t have that card, they shouldn’t risk their lives crossing the desert in the dark of night.”
Stephen Bartolin Jr., president and CEO of the Broadmoor, said that without the seasonal-worker visa program, the hotel would suffer.
“These are not minimum- wage jobs we offer. The average housekeeper is going to make $10 an hour, laid over a matching 401(k), comprehensive health plan, dental plan, vision care – all those are there,” Bartolin said.
“But we can’t find people who want to make up 12 rooms a day, work in the laundries, work on the golf courses.”
Michelle Castellano, a spokeswoman for Mellano & Company, a floral business, said the country’s agricultural visa program is “broken.”
Agricultural companies that have tried to use that system have had employees show up two months later, and millions of dollars worth of crops died because no one was available to harvest them.
Carlos Espinosa, a spokesman for U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo., who is a strong proponent of tougher immigration laws, was not at Monday’s discussion, but he later said: “Sounds like Mr. Gutierrez assembled a pretty sympathetic choir to preach to.
“Maybe on his way back to D.C., he’ll actually get around to talking to regular folks who overwhelmingly want the U.S. government to enforce the law.”
Erin Emery can be reached at 719-522-1360 or eemery@denverpost.com.
