Representatives of businesses and industries beleaguered by a lack of workers and stepped-up immigration enforcement cheered a compromise immigration-reform proposal unveiled Thursday.
Sean McHugh, a spokesman for Greeley-based Swift & Co., which saw meatpacking plants in six states targeted by immigration raids in December, said the company is pleased that a bipartisan group of senators found common ground.
The group offered a compromise proposal that includes a path to citizenship for undocumented workers now in the country and would create a temporary- worker program, beef up border patrols and crack down on employers that hire illegal immigrants.
“We hope these reform provisions remain intact through the balance of the legislative process and ultimately become law,” McHugh said.
Representatives of landscaping, hotel-and-lodging, construction, agricultural and other businesses have all called for an immigration package that would give them access to foreign workers for jobs they say Americans don’t want.
Though President Bush supports reform and said he would sign the compromise bill, there nonetheless could be a tough battle before it reaches his desk.
Bush and Democrats backed similar legislation a year ago before it was blocked by House Republicans, who condemned its citizenship opportunity for those now illegally in the U.S.
While they were encouraged by Thursday’s compromise, Colorado business leaders said they wanted to learn more about the details of the proposal.
“We hope that it provides for border security but also for a legal way for us to employ the people we need,” said Mark Lat imer, president and chief executive of the Rocky Mountain chapter of Associated Builders and Contractors.
The proposal includes an “AgJobs” measure that would create a five-year pilot program to legalize immigration status for those who have worked in U.S. agriculture for at least 150 days over the previous two years.
“Anything that will help keep some of these workers around, you bet it will be good,” said Chuck Bird, vice president of Martin Produce in Greeley, which packs onions and potatoes for distribution.
The compromise bill requires tough enforcement measures, and that is appropriate, said Tom Clark, executive vice president of the Metro Denver Economic Development Corp. But the final bill, he said, should assure that business owners won’t be liable for hiring undocumented workers if they do the best they can to check identification that turns out to be false.
“We have to have some way of being sure that there won’t be extraordinary measures taken against us if people are deceitful,” Clark said.
A separate temporary-worker program would be established for 400,000 immigrants a year. Each temporary work visa would be good for two years and could be renewed up to three times, as long as the worker leaves the country for a year between renewals.
The program could take some pressure off landscaping, construction and other businesses that rely on foreign workers who come here on temporary H2B visas, said Kristen Sirovatka Fefes, executive director of the Associated Landscape Contractors of Colorado.
The existing H2B program for temporary unskilled workers fails to meet employer needs, she said.
In deciding whom to admit, the proposed system would give weight to immigrants’ education and job skills deemed helpful to the economy.
That could be a problem for the hotel- and-lodging industry, said Ilene Kamsler, head of the Colorado Hotel & Lodging Association.
“A lot of our jobs are entry-level, nonskilled jobs, and they get trained,” she said. “So I’m not sure that addresses our needs for unskilled labor.”
Denver Post wire services contributed to this report.
Staff writer Tom McGhee can be reached at 303-954-1671 or tmcghee@denverpost.com.
