We are very concerned about the Border Security and Immigration Improvement Act of 2003, H.R. 2899 and S. 1461, sponsored by Representatives Jim Kolbe and Jeff Flake and Senator John McCain, as well as other bills that would establish new open-ended guest worker programs covering all U.S occupations. In our view, the bills are modeled after the worst aspect of the H-1B visa program for high-tech workers, and in many respects go even further. This legislation would undermine wages and labor protections for all workers.

Although we applaud and support efforts to provide legal status to the millions of hard-working undocumented workers living in this country, the path to legal permanent residency under this bill is long and daunting. Even more troubling is the bill’s new program for foreign temporary workers; a program that would cover and establish the same entry rules for low-wage occupations as professional occupations requiring a college degree. The new program includes no annual cap on the number of guest workers that can enter the U.S. for any job. It also includes minimal requirements that employers pay guest workers and U.S. workers the same, and effectively no independent verification, other than the employer’s word, that the proper wage will be set. The new program also establishes no connection to the local labor market -- whether a labor shortage exists for a given occupation or whether there is high unemployment in the area. Instead, it requires a short 14-day period in which employers would be required to recruit in the U.S., largely through an electronic database.

These bills are recipes not only for large-scale displacement and wage erosion in a broad range of occupations, but abuse of both guest workers and their U.S. counterparts.

Contact Suzanne Ffolkes 202-637-5018