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Migration and Refugee Services/Office of Migration Policy and Public AffairsThe United States Conference of Catholic BishopsAugust 2013

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, there are currently 11.2 million unauthorized persons residing in the United States. Each year, approximately 300,000 more unauthorized immigrants enter the country. In large part, these immigrants feel compelled to enter by either the explicit or implicit promise of employment in the U.S. agriculture, construction, and service industries, among others. Most of this unauthorized flow comes from Mexico, a nation struggling with severe poverty, where it is often impossible for many to earn a living wage and meet the basic needs of their families.

Survival has thus become the primary impetus for unauthorized immigration flows into the United States. Todays unauthorized immigrants are largely lowskilled workers who come to the United States for work to support their families. Over the past several decades, the demand by U.S. businesses, large and small, for lowskilled workers has grown exponentially, while the supply of available workers for lowskilled jobs has diminished. Yet, there are only 5,000 green cards available annually for lowskilled workers to enter the United States lawfully to reside and work. The only alternative to this is a temporary work visa through the H2A (seasonal agricultural) or H2B (seasonal nonagricultural) visa programs which provide temporary status to lowskilled workers seeking to enter the country lawfully. While H2A visas are not numerically capped, the requirements are onerous. H2B visas are capped at 66,000 annually. Both only provide temporary status to work for a U.S. employer for one year. At their current numbers, these are woefully insufficient to provide legal means for the foreignborn to enter the United States to live and work, and thereby meet our demand for foreignborn labor.

In light of all of this, many unauthorized consider the prospect of being apprehended for crossing illegally into the United States a necessary risk. Even after being arrested and deported, reports indicate that many immigrants attempt to reenter the United States once again in the hope of bettering their lives.

Adding to this very human dilemma is the potentially dangerous nature of crossing the Southern border. Smugglers looking to take advantage of wouldbe immigrants extort them for exorbitant sums of money and then transport them to the U.S. under perilous conditions. Other immigrants have opted to access the U.S. by crossing through the Southwests treacherous deserts. As a result, thousands of migrants have tragically perished in such attempts from heat exposure, dehydration, and drowning.

The Catholic Catechism instructs the faithful that good government has two duties, both of which must be carried out and neither of which can be ignored. The first duty is to welcome the foreigner out of charity and respect for the human person. Persons have the right to immigrate and thus government must accommodate this right to the greatest extent possible, especially financially blessed nations: "The more prosperous nations are obliged, to the extent they are able, to welcome the foreigner in search of the security and the means of livelihood which he cannot find in his country of origin. Public authorities should see to it that the natural right is respected that places a guest under the protection of those who receive him." Catholic Catechism, 2241.

The second duty is to secure ones border and enforce the law for the sake of the common good. Sovereign nations have the right to enforce their laws and all persons must respect the legitimate exercise of this right: "Political authorities, for the sake of the common good for which they are responsible may make the exercise of the right to immigrate subject to various juridical conditions, especially with regard to the immigrants' duties toward their country of adoption. Immigrants are obliged to respect with gratitude the material and spiritual heritage of the country that receives them, to obey its laws and to assist in carrying civic burdens." Catholic Catechism, 2241.

In January 2003, the U.S. Catholic Bishops released a pastoral letter on migration entitled, "Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope." In their letter, the Bishops stressed that, "[w]hen persons cannot find employment in their country of origin to support themselves and their families, they have a right to find work elsewhere in order to survive. Sovereign nations should provide ways to accommodate this right." No. 35. The Bishops made clear that the "[m]ore powerful economic nationsave a stronger obligation to accommodate migration flows." No. 36.

The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) opposes "enforcement only" immigration policies and supports comprehensive immigration reform. In Strangers No Longer: Together on the Journey of Hope, the U.S. Catholic Bishops outlined the elements of their proposal for comprehensive immigration reform. These include:

Earned Legalization: An earned legalization program would allow foreign nationals of good moral character who are living in the United States to apply to adjust their status to obtain lawful permanent residence. Such a program would create an eventual path to citizenship, requiring applicants to complete and pass background checks, pay a fine, and establish eligibility for resident status to participate in the program. Such a program would help stabilize the workforce, promote family unity, and bring a large population "out of the shadows," as members of their communities.

Future Worker Program: A worker program to permit foreignborn workers to enter the country safely and legally would help reduce illegal immigration and the loss of life in the American desert. Any program should include workplace protections, living wage levels, safeguards against the displacement of U.S. workers, and family unity.

Familybased Immigration Reform: It currently takes years for family members to be reunited through the familybased legal immigration system. This leads to family breakdown and, in some cases, illegal immigration. Changes in familybased immigration should be made to increase the number of family visas available and reduce family reunification waiting times.

Restoration of Due Process Rights: Due process rights taken away by the 1996 Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act (IIRIRA) should be restored. For example, the three and ten year bars to reentry should be eliminated.

Addressing Root Causes: Congress should examine the root causes of migration, such as underdevelopment and poverty in sending countries, and seek longterm solutions. The antidote to the problem of illegal immigration is sustainable economic development in sending countries. In an ideal world, migration should be driven by choice, not necessity.

Enforcement: The U.S. Catholic Bishops accept the legitimate role of the U.S. government in intercepting unauthorized migrants who attempt to travel to the United States. The Bishops also believe that by increasing lawful means for migrants to enter, live, and work in the United States, law enforcement will be better able to focus upon those who truly threaten public safety: drug and human traffickers, smugglers, and wouldbe terrorists. Any enforcement measures must be targeted, proportional, and humane.

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Catholic Church's Position on Immigration Reform - usccb.org

President Trump will propose to Congress an immigration reform agenda focused on border security, interior enforcement, and the creation of a merit-based visa system, a senior White House official told reporters Sunday evening.

In response to speaking with interagencies and rank-and-file lawmakers, the administration compiled a list of to-do items as Congress mulls over how to respond to the winding down of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

The White House official made no mention of DACA, former President Barack Obama's 2012 executive action, but said the three items on the administration's proposal represent the top line findings of what various federal departments said was necessary to reform. The administration is expected to share its plan with Congress this week.

"Rather than asking what policies are supported by special interests, we asked America's law enforcement professionals to identify reforms that are vital to protect the national interest," Trump said in a letter. "In response, they identified dangerous loopholes, outdated laws, and easily exploited vulnerabilities in our immigration system current policies that are harming our country and our communities."

Keeping with Trump's campaign promise to secure the U.S.-Mexico southwestern border, the administration will recommend the "full funding" of the wall, but did not disclose the estimated cost of such an undertaking.

The majority of border security changes will be directed at policies that relate to people who arrive at or are apprehended by Customs and Border Protection officers or Border Patrol agents while attempting to enter the U.S.

"Border security has changed a lot since the 1990s," the White House official said. "A lot of illegal immigrants who have learned how to game the system and smugglers who have learrned to game the system [have been able to] escape any kind of removal."

The Trump administration will propose reforming laws regarding unaccompanied minor children, or UACs, so that they may be "expeditiously returned to their countries." The effect of doing so will help lift the burden on the backlog of asylum requests, which currently has more than 500,000 people waiting to have their cases heard by a judge.

An additional 370 immigration judges, 1,000 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement attorneys, and 300 federal prosecutors will also be requested as a means of clearing the backlogs.

Trump also wants harsher penalties for people who attempt to re-enter the U.S. after being deported and will ask for Kate's Law to be included in any congressional reforms to immigration policy. The bill would increase the penalties for illegal immigrants who are caught trying to return to the U.S. after being deported.

The second component to the administration's immigration reforms proposal is enhanced interior enforcement.

The White House official who spoke with reporters said the biggest problem facing ICE officers who focus on this aspect of immigration is simply a "lack of resources and the lack of authorities to enforce interior immigration."

The president wants 10,000 officers hired to supplement the 6,000 officers in ICE's Enforcement and Removal Operations agency, which he first called for in his Jan. 25 executive order.

The move would focus primarily on visa overstayers, which make up the largest number of illegal immigrants in the U.S., not southern border trespassers.

Despite being dealt a setback by a federal judge in Illinois last month, the administration will ask Congress to limit grants for sanctuary cities that do not comply with federal detainer requests and create incentives for cities and states that do.

Trump will also ask for the legal immigration system to be changed into a merit-based one that ends chain migration.

In August, Trump endorsed the revised Raise Act. Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia rolled out the update and touted it as a way to do away with a system that often benefits family members of current U.S. residents and replace it with one that weighs the skills sets of potential candidates and favors those who meet industry needs.

The RAISE Act marks a new approach to immigration reform than Sens. John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Marco Rubio of Florida attempted in 2013 with the "Gang of Eight" bill. It is the most significant type of green card reform since the GOP-majority Congress unsuccessfully tried to cut immigration numbers with a provision in 1996.

Family immigration categories would be narrowed to no longer include extended family members and adult children of U.S. citizens. However, citizens are able to apply for renewable, temporary visas for elderly parents.

If passed, the 1 million legal immigrants who enter the U.S. annually would drop to somewhere between 500,000 and 600,000 people by 2027, putting it in line with historic norms.

E-Verify, which gives employers a way to go online and check a job applicant's legal ability to work in the U.S., will also be required on a nationwide basis and government contactors who do not comply will see their contracts canceled.

House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte praised the proposal Sunday evening.

"The Trump administration has put forth a serious proposal to address the enforcement of our immigration laws and border security. Many of these policies have been included in legislation passed by the House Judiciary Committee," Goodlatte said in a statement.

"As a member of the Speaker's working group on immigration, we will take time to review the administration's priorities and consider their implications for our immigration system and the rule of law. One thing is clear, however: we cannot fix the DACA problem without fixing all of the issues that led to the underlying problem of illegal immigration in the first place."

While campaigning last year, Trump promised to "immediately terminate" the 2012 policy that permitted illegal immigrants who entered the U.S. as minors to receive a two-year period of deferred action and work permit. Recipients' approval would last two years and could be renewed if the individual remained in good legal standing.

As a candidate, Trump blasted the "amnesty" program that Obama's second term Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson imposed by memo because Congress could not pass comprehensive immigration reform.

Conservatives have called DACA "amnesty" because it forgives the removes the conseuquences from an illegal action taken by the parents of the recepients.

Shortly after his inauguration, Trump appeared to be wavering in his commitment to rescinding DACA. He told one news outlet recipients "shouldn't be worried" because "we're going to take care of everybody."

Then in April, Trump reiterated that compassionate view when he said "we need special heart" to "understand the other side of that equation" as it relates to DACA recipients.

Trump had said he would rescind DACA by March, and encouraged Congress to pass legislation protecting immigrants who were brought to the country illegally as children.

Three bills relating to DACA have been introduced in recent months, including the Border Security and Deferred Action Recipient Relief Act by Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz.; the Dream Act by Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., and Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill.,; and the Succeed Act by GOP Sens. James Lankford of Oklahoma and Thom Tillis of North Carolina. The White House has not endorsed any of the bills.

Trump mentioned the RAISE Act during discussions with Republicans and Democrats two weeks ago. Democrats indicated they would be able to work out a deal with Trump that creates a legislative version of DACA, in return for tougher border security.

But the deal as described by Democrats mostly favored their position: they said they would insist on a path to citizenship for Dreamers, and said the border measure they could support is essentially language calling on the government to create a border enforcement plan.

House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul has said the government is in the best position to achieve progress on border reforms and has a plan that just needs to be implemented.

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immigration reform plans - washingtonexaminer.com

Fort Worth Star Telegram (blog)

An opening for immigration reform, courtesy of Trump? Fort Worth Star Telegram (blog) President George W. Bush, who made passing comprehensive immigration reform the primary (albeit ultimately futile) goal of his second term, pushed back against those who called for the deportation of all people in the country illegally. "It is neither ... Trump's Wall and immigration reform Dreamers, deportations and a deal?Fox News Immigration Reform News 2017: Will Trump Agree to Protect ...Christian Post Trump aides plot a big immigration deal that breaks a campaign promiseMcClatchy Washington Bureau Politico -The Hill -Townhall -Texas Attorney General all 101 news articles »

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An opening for immigration reform, courtesy of Trump? - Fort Worth Star Telegram (blog)

As the Chicago hotel and restaurant scene booms, so, too, does the scramble for workers, and some businesses say they need more immigration, not less, to meet their labor needs.

Those were among the sentiments captured in a new report from the Chicago Council on Global Affairs that analyzed the hospitality industry's reliance on immigrant labor across the Midwest, which comes as the Trump administration moves to reduce immigration.

With hospitality job growth expected to continue and the region's U.S.-born population graying, shrinking and opting for higher-skill jobs, the report says the sector needs access to an immigrant workforce to keep the doors open.

Leisure and hospitality jobs, which account for nearly 10 percent of employment in Illinois and across the Midwest, are disproportionately filled by immigrants, who not only wash dishes and clean hotel rooms but also launch small businesses that create more jobs, according to the report, released Thursday and the last in a series.

Immigrants, who make up 13 percent of the U.S. population, account for 31 percent of hotel workers and 22 percent of food service workers, according to the report. Immigrant entrepreneurs comprise 43 percent of owners of small hotels and motels and 37 percent of small restaurant owners.

But about 1.3 million hospitality workers across the country work without legal authorization. Twenty percent of the nation's cooks and 28 percent of its dishwashers are here illegally, the report says.

Report author Sara McElmurry, assistant director of immigration at the think tank, spent two years interviewing several dozen restaurant and hotel owners and managers, labor organizers and trade associations across the Midwest to understand the industry's labor concerns in the region.

The consensus is that "we need reforms that responsibly expand the immigration system to hire more of these workers," McElmurry said. In addition, she said, "what I heard consistently was let's build some sort of pathway that allows workers to adjust their legal status."

The White House and some Republican lawmakers have taken the opposite stance, saying immigration, particularly for low-skill jobs, hurts American workers who must compete.

President Donald Trump, whose toughened immigration enforcement policies have raised fears among some hospitality businesses that they could be subject to workplace raids, this month endorsed proposed legislation that would reduce legal immigration by 50 percent by giving priority to highly skilled, educated and English-speaking immigrants, and deprioritizing extended family members of current legal residents. It did not address what to do with immigrants already in the country who are here illegally.

But some of the toughest jobs to fill are low-wage, low-skill hospitality jobs, according to the council's report, especially in areas like Chicago with an exploding food scene.

"In Chicago it is so competitive, there are so many restaurants, it is difficult to get staff and good staff," said Billy Lawless Sr., whose family owns the Gage, the Dawson and several other popular restaurants in the city.

Lawless, himself an immigrant from Ireland and an advocate of immigration reform, said it has always been difficult to find dishwashers and table bussers, but now the labor crunch is across the board.

"Of course we'd like to employ citizens, absolutely, why wouldn't we," said Lawless, who estimates at least 30 percent of his staff are immigrants, most of whom earn more than minimum wage. "They just won't apply to the menial jobs."

But Dave Gorak, executive director of the Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration, said the notion Americans won't do the work is a "falsehood" because many already do.

"The availability of cheap foreign labor, especially the illegal variety, is preferred because employers know it serves to hold down labor costs," said Gorak, whose group is based in La Valle, Wis. "Without this plentiful source of workers, these employers would be forced to make a greater effort to recruit Americans and raise wages."

To be sure, there are areas of Chicago with high rates of unemployment and the city talks often about a crisis of youth joblessness that plagues parts of the South and West sides.

But while there are pipeline programs to help employ people with barriers, such as criminal records or bouts with homelessness, report author McElmurry said they have found "varying rates of success."

"A lot of employers have told me the most consistent source of workers has been immigrant labor," she said.

Immigration is particularly important to the Midwest, where the population is not only aging into retirement but also growing more slowly than the rest of the nation and losing people of prime working age, McElmurry said.

The industry also has felt squeezed as teens and young adults who used to take entry-level hospitality jobs prioritize other activities, like internships or summer school, and gravitate toward jobs that give them benefits and holidays off, her report said.

Teens made up 17.4 percent of the restaurant workforce in 2016, up from 16 percent in 2010 but still down from 21 percent in 2007, according to the National Restaurant Association.

Low pay and physically demanding work also make it difficult to fill certain jobs with U.S.-born workers who have other options. In the Chicago metro area, the mean wage for housekeepers is $12.81 an hour, or $26,650 a year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. For dishwashers, the mean wage in the area is $10.88, or $22,620 a year.

Mario Garcia, who until last year worked as a weekend manager at a suburban Best Western, said nearly all of the workers he hired at the hotel were immigrants because they accepted low pay for difficult jobs without complaint. Most earned minimum wage, which in Illinois currently is $8.25 an hour.

Americans who applied usually were hired to work the front desk, where their language skills were most useful. They didn't want the physically punishing jobs like housekeeping once they learned the wage, he said.

Hiring immigrants became "a cycle," he said, because it was easier for the Spanish-speaking supervisors to train new workers in their language. Sometimes it was positive, because they could communicate with international guests. But the language barrier also prevented some workers from advocating for themselves, such as when years went by without a raise, he said.

While critical to the industry, immigrant workers are vulnerable to exploitation, Garcia said. They work hard without complaint for fear of a reduction in their hours or of being replaced by another willing applicant.

Garcia said he didn't think the hotel wanted to make wages more appealing because it counted on saving money on its workforce so it could invest in hotel renovations.

McElmurry said the industry needs to take a holistic approach to its labor challenges and address low wages, demanding or unsafe working conditions and high worker turnover in addition to immigration reform.

The report offers several policy recommendations to benefit workers and employers, including streamlining the tangle of worker visas that allow people to work in the U.S. seasonally or temporarily if they are transferred from abroad or are in training.

Other recommendations include providing a pathway for immigrants in the U.S. illegally to become legal and, subsequently, a mandatory system for employers to verify the legal status of their new hires.

The report also recommends Congress create a permanent visa channel for foreign-born entrepreneurs, who drive many dining innovations.

Despite the federal gridlock over immigration, Illinois and Chicago were highlighted for creating environments where immigrants can flourish.

In Chicago, the $30 million Hatchery incubator for food and beverage entrepreneurs is being built in collaboration in part with Accion Chicago, which serves immigrants. The city also partnered with area universities to launch a Global Entrepreneurship in Residence Program to sponsor entrepreneurs with H-1B visas, and it is creating municipal identification cards for people living here illegally.

Illinois, meanwhile, is the only state in the Midwest that extends driving privileges to immigrants in the U.S. illegally, helping them get to work. And Gov. Bruce Rauner has said he plans to sign the Trust Act, which would prohibit state and local police from arresting or detaining people solely because of their immigration status.

Sam Toia, president and CEO of the Illinois Restaurant Association, said in an emailed statement that the report "definitely drives the conversation forward with pragmatic immigration reform policy recommendations that will help the Midwest's hospitality industries thrive."

aelejalderuiz@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @alexiaer

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Hospitality industry needs more immigrant workers to survive, report says - Chicago Tribune

From Alabama poultry plants to Utah hotels, employers who want to hire unauthorized workers or to escape accountability for their poor treatment of legal workers appear to be turning to temp agencies and other labor contractors to evade scrutiny.

The practice is especially prevalent in Western and Southern states that require private employers to use E-Verify, a federal online service, to confirm that their employees are legal residents.

In eight of the nine states that require E-Verify for private employers (Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Utah), the number of temporary workers grew faster than the national average between 2012 and 2016, according to a Stateline analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics data. The one exception was Louisiana.

"It is not a coincidence that the significant rise in temporary workers happened around the time when a number of states were enacting laws which mandated use of E-Verify," said Muzaffar Chishti, an immigration law expert at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonprofit research group.

"It became difficult for companies to comply because people did not have work authorization," Chishti said. "They quickly realized that the law applies to hiring people, but they can't accuse you if you're not literally hiring people. They could get agencies to hire for them or use workers as contractors without hiring them."

The practice has drawn concern both from conservative experts who want less illegal immigration, and from immigration advocates who find temp agencies harder to hold accountable for worker abuse.

Ira Mehlman of the Federation for American Immigration Reform, which favors immigration restrictions, said "business wants to take advantage of this loophole," and that state and federal officials lack the political will to close it.

On the other side of the political spectrum, Naomi Tsu of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which has studied the abuse of Hispanic employees at Alabama poultry plants, said the use of labor contractors to evade E-Verify "is a double-edged sword. (Immigrants) can get jobs, but it does open them up to abuse."

The Southern Poverty Law Center, or SPLC, has filed complaints about laborers hired by a contractor for the Wayne Farms and Pilgrim's Pride poultry plants in Alabama. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission followed up with a lawsuit against the contractor, East Coast Labor Solutions.

Both the SPLC and the federal commission accused East Coast Labor Solutions, which has had a series of different names, of singling out Hispanic workers both noncitizens in the country illegally and U.S. citizens recruited from Puerto Rico for harder work, lower pay and more dangerous conditions on segregated lines.

"Plant workers, many of whom are immigrants, are often treated as disposable resources by their employers," a 2013 SPLC report found. "Threats of deportation and firing are frequently used to keep them silent."

The federal government had already taken action against Pilgrim's Pride. The company paid a $4.5 million settlement in 2009 after federal authorities arrested 338 illegal immigrants during raids on plants in five states.

In 1986, the federal Immigration Reform and Control Act made it illegal to knowingly hire unauthorized workers. Employers have sought ways around the law ever since, according to Chishti.

In states that don't mandate E-Verify screening, employers may hire workers with falsified paperwork and still comply with federal law, since they are not knowingly violating it. Furthermore, E-Verify cannot be used to screen existing employees only new hires.

"Obviously if the working unauthorized population is near 7 million, something is going on," Chishti said. "How are people able to find work if the law says you can't hire them?"

Even in states that mandate the use of E-Verify, the threat of state legal action has been mostly theoretical. A spokesman for Alabama's attorney general said the office is charged with enforcing the law but hasn't actively done so. In Georgia, the Department of Audits requires that companies prove they are using E-Verify by providing a registration number, but the agency doesn't have the resources to check up on individual hires.

"A lot of politicians want to pass laws to make themselves look good but they don't fund the enforcement," said David Fowler, president of the E-Verify Employer Agent Alliance, a trade group of computer programmers working to build tools to help employers use E-Verify.

Still, because of occasional federal audits and investigations of whistleblower complaints, it's risky for a company to hire unauthorized immigrants indirectly through contractors, Fowler said. He pointed to a 2005 case in which Wal-Mart paid $11 million to settle accusations that it used cleaning contractors that hired unauthorized immigrants.

More recently, in 2014 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement uncovered suspicious hiring at a Salt Lake City-based hotel chain. Grand America Hotels and Resorts paid nearly $2 million to settle accusations that managers and employees created temporary employment agencies to rehire unauthorized immigrants who had been fired after an earlier audit.

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More employers may be using temps to skirt immigration laws - Post-Bulletin