DENVER-
A group of restaurants, hotels and landscape businesses said Wednesday they’re banding together to push Congress to change immigration laws, including increasing the number of foreign workers brought in on temporary visas.
The new group—Colorado Employers for Immigration Reform—is similar to ones that have been established in Texas, Arizona and Florida. Members say they’re unable to find enough Americans interested in the temporary, labor-intensive jobs their industries depend on.
The jobs they focused on—landscaping, housekeeping and dishwashing—generally start at $8 to $10 an hour. Members don’t think they would get more American workers if they raised wages; they said the problem is the type of work. Mark Kramer, owner of JBK Landscape, said he couldn’t even find enough people to remove snow at $25 an hour during last winter’s storms.
“People would rather ride a mountain bike and pay a gym than go out and work with their hands,” said Kramer.
He said plenty of “hippies” were willing to work for him when he started in business 30 years ago.
Besides authorizing more temporary visas, Congress should establish a year-round guest worker program and enforce immigration laws, the business group said.
The group has not taken a position yet on whether the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the country should become citizens, spokeswoman Kristen Fefes said.
Kramer said the current system is time-consuming and unreliable but it’s the only way to legally hire foreign workers in his industry. Businesses must advertise the positions at wages set by the state labor department before being able to bring in temporary workers. Kramer said he has only hired six local workers for the approximately 400 jobs he’s advertised over the last nine years.
This year, he said his partner had to drive to Nogales, Mexico to talk to the American consulate there about their application for temporary workers because the office had failed to return their telephone calls for three weeks.
If he doesn’t get the 45 temporary workers he expects to have, Kramer said he would have to close his company—and lay off his year round workers from Colorado—since 75 percent of his business comes in the summer.
Unlike workers who cross the border illegally, Kramer said all workers are closely screened and one of his workers was denied re-entry because of an unpaid parking ticket the previous year.
“We have something in this country that works and we’re ruining it,” he said.
Each year the federal government sets a cap on the number of temporary, H2B visas, which are mostly used by the landscaping and hospitality industries. Currently the cap is set at 66,000 nationwide but workers who have already participated in the program aren’t counted toward that total, Fefes said.
She said that’s set to change Sept. 30 and the loss of those extra workers is part of the urgency driving the push for reform. One proposal introduced in Congress wouldn’t count previous visa holders toward the cap for five years.
The group includes businesses like The Broadmoor Hotel and Landtech Contractors as well as trade groups including the Colorado Restaurant Association, Colorado Hotel and Lodging Association and the Colorado Contractors Association.
