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Worker Status Poses Burden to Farms
By JUNE KRONHOLZ
August 9, 2007; Page A7
WASHINGTON -- Employers warned of labor shortages, particularly in
agriculture during the fall harvest, as the Bush administration appeared ready
to implement new rules that would press employers to fire workers who appear to
be in the U.S. illegally.
"With no expectation there's a fall-back workforce, you'll put
employers in the position of either firing workers or losing their crops," said
Craig Regelbrugge of the American Nursery and Landscape Association, a trade
group.
The administration is under pressure from voters, and particularly
Republican conservatives, to show it's tough on illegal immigration after an
immigration bill supported by President Bush collapsed in the Senate in June.
The administration's apparent intention to proceed with the regulations, a year
after first proposing them, was reported earlier by the Los Angeles Times.
The regulations will require employers to play a greater role in
verifying that their workers are in the U.S. legally, potentially putting new
administrative burdens on industries, particularly agriculture, health care and
construction, that typically hire large numbers of immigrants.
In return for the increased records checks and a willingness to fire
suspected illegal immigrants, the regulations offer employers "safe harbor"
protections against prosecution for illegal hiring.
The Department of
Homeland Security said it would implement the regulations "in the very near
term," without saying when. But if that happens during the harvest season, trade
groups predicted huge problems for growers who already face labor shortages. An
estimated two-thirds of agriculture workers are thought to be in the U.S.
illegally.
The department first proposed the regulations in June 2006 but then
failed to implement them while an immigration-overhaul made its way to the
Senate floor. That bill collapsed in part because of a public outcry over the
administration's lax enforcement of immigration laws already on the books.
Currently, an employer reports a new worker's name and Social Security
number with the Social Security Administration, and if the two don't match
government records, the employer receives a so-called "no-match" letter. The
department sends a similar letter if the worker's name doesn't match the
identity document that the worker shows to prove he or she has the right to work
in the U.S.
Employers aren't required to act on those letters, so workers can
present counterfeit or stolen Social Security numbers without much danger of
being challenged by labor-hungry bosses.
Under the new regulations, employers would have to sort out the
discrepancy by asking the worker for new identity and immigration documents. If
the problem still isn't resolved, the regulations say that "the employer must
choose between taking action to terminate the employee or facing the risk" of
prosecution. Employers who complete and document the multi-step verification
process and still don't discover that the worker is an illegal immigrant also
wouldn't be prosecuted under the department's safe-harbor provision.
The new rules "will provide clarity for employers," said Russ Knocke, a
DHS spokesman.
Industries with largely legal workforces will take some
comfort in the safe-harbor provisions, said Scott Vinson of the National Council
of Chain Restaurants, a trade group. But employers in industries that are highly
dependent on immigrants predicted the regulations could lead to a slowing
economy.
"Employers might have to start firing, and then you might have a
workforce that's barely adequate," said Shawn McBurney of the American Hotel and
Lodging Association.
The regulations also are likely to cause paperwork
burdens for employers in low-skill industries, which typically have high
turnover and attract immigrant workers. Those employers will be faced with
sorting through the documents of workers suspected of being in the U.S.
illegally, but also of workers who receive no-match letters because of clerical
errors, name changes or records confusion.
The regulation could quiet criticism by Republican conservatives that
the administration's failure to enforce immigration laws is attracting some half
million illegal immigrants yearly. Under pressure from those critics, the
administration has vastly stepped up worksite enforcement in the past year.
Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents made 3,839 worksite arrests in the
first eight months of the current fiscal year, up from 1,282 in 2005, according
to a department Web site.
But advocates of immigration overhaul contend that tougher enforcement
will create labor shortages and drive illegal workers into the underground
economy, but it won't keep them from coming. Mr. Regelbrugge also predicted that
employers would move more operations overseas or, as with agriculture, to Mexico
and Canada. "Doing enforcement only is going to have tremendous downside
consequences on the economy," he said.
Write to June Kronholz at june.kronholz@wsj.com
Now I, as I said in the post prior to this about this issue, do not have a problem with this. If we would have had our government Enforcing laws already on the books for the years that have passed before this, it wouldn't have been such a hit. However, in saying that, is it really going to be that painful? This makes me remember those who cried "streets of blood" and "non-stop gunfire everywhere" when states passed Right To Carry laws. It never happened. So I doubt that the pain will be more than a drop of rain on my head.
