Immigration reform in 2007? Not much

Despite all the headlines, the emotional rallies, the politics and the House and Senate votes, very little immigration policy was actually made this year.

Late in 2006, Los Angeles-based immigration attorney Carl Shusterman predicted that “Congress will … pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill in 2007 which provides for strong enforcement and for a workable immigration system. We predict that such a bill will be signed into law by President Bush.”

As it turns out, issues like amnesty and guest-workers are highly contentious, and no legislation ever made it to the president’s desk.

The push for an immigration bill

President Bush called for a “balanced” approach to immigration reform: tougher enforcement at the border coupled with programs to permit legal guest-workers in this country and a path to legalization, with restrictions, for illegal immigrants who are longtime U.S. residents.

But Republicans in Congress favored a more punitive approach to illegal immigration, calling the presence of an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants a threat to homeland security. The House version of the immigration bill would have made it a felony to be in this country illegally.

We didn’t see the massive protests this year that were staged in 2006 by hundreds of thousands of Latino immigration-rights protestors who took to the streets of major metropolitan areas, arguing that illegal immigrants should not be treated as criminals.

States grow impatient

Congress’ failure to overhaul immigration policies fed frustrations in several states. State legislatures began blazing new policies that often were contrary to federal ones.

The toughest sanctions against employers who hire undocumented workers were adopted in Arizona, where National Guard troops were activated to help stop illegal border crossings from Mexico. Gov. Janet Napolitano signed the bill after Congress failed to enact immigration reform. Employers who knowingly hire illegal immigrants can lose their business licenses.

It will be interesting to see where immigration reform goes in 2008. Happy New Year, everyone. Cross your fingers.

Selected immigration happenings in 2007

January

Tree planters sued their employer, Eller and Sons Trees of LaGrange, Ga., for back wages and reimbursement of out-of-pocket expenses because they said they were not paid overtime and often were required to pay for their own tools, visas and travel costs. It drew attention as one of several legal challenges to the H-2B visa program.

The AgJOBS bill was reintroduced in the Senate. The list of sponsors included the chairman of the Judiciary Committee and four declared presidential candidates.

February

Guatemalan immigrants from the H-2B program sued Imperial Nurseries in Granby, Conn., claiming fraud and exploitation. A U.S. Department of Labor investigation found Pro Tree Forestry Services, an independent labor contractor retained by Imperial, had not paid the legally required wage.

March

Craig Regelbrugge, ANLA vice president for government relations and research, addressed the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce: “Simply put, we have a dynamic and diverse economy producing more jobs than there are Americans to fill them -- especially for seasonal jobs and lower-skilled jobs.”

ANLA also spoke on behalf of labor-intensive agriculture at USDA’s annual Agricultural Outlook Conference. Regelbrugge said the notion that the influx of illegal aliens into the agricultural work force has caused labor productivity to stagnate, and that growers and producers have relied on hiring illegal workers rather than adopting labor-saving technological innovations, is baseless.

May

Doug Torn, owner of Buds & Blooms Nursery in Brown Summit, N.C., was part of a horticulture and agriculture coalition that met with senators in mid-May about the immigration bill. “We’ve all got to band together -- nursery growers and all areas of agriculture -- and get our family members and employees talking to our representatives in the House,” Torn said.

June

Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., removed the immigration reform bill from the floor, stating the Senate needed to move onto other issues. Amendments added to the original compromise agreed upon by 12 senators doomed the legislation.

July

Arizona passed far-reaching legislation aimed at cracking down on businesses that hire illegal workers. Beginning Jan. 1, 2008, Arizona employers must verify their employees are “present in the country legally.” Businesses caught employing an illegal work force face suspensions of their business licenses. A second offense may result in the “business death penalty” -- permanent revocation of an employer’s licenses to do business in the state.

U.S. Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez addressed ANLA at its Legislative Conference. He said that the failure to pass immigration legislation was due to grass-roots efforts by anti-immigrant groups.

August

Hannah Mathers, Ohio State University Extension nursery and landscape specialist, conducted a multistate survey of 1,548 nursery employees. According to the survey, 70 percent of the industry’s labor force is Spanish-speaking or of Hispanic origin. More than half is from Mexico. Hispanic migrant laborers dominated the green industry in all of the states surveyed except Indiana.

September

Department of Homeland Security threatened a crackdown on Social Security mismatch letters. AFL-CIO, ACLU and the National Immigration Law Center filed a lawsuit to stop the order.

October

A federal judge issued an order to temporarily block the mismatch rule. The order stopped the Social Security Administration from sending out 140,000 no-match letters to businesses.

Sen. Larry Craig’s guilty plea to disorderly conduct was seen as a setback to building momentum among Republican senators to adopt AgJOBS. Craig was the lead Republican senator supporting passage of the AgJOBS bill. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., outspoken in her support for quick action on AgJOBS, became the torchbearer for a federal effort to address the critical shortage of legal seasonal workers in agriculture.

November

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Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid indicated that the Senate may consider AgJOBS as part of its debate of the Farm Bill.

- Kevin Neal