Immigration issue key to business future

02/26/2006
Via MSNBC

Most everyone agrees that U.S. immigration policy is broken, but there’s a huge divide over how to fix it.

Millions of immigrants are in the country illegally, employers are
having trouble hiring the qualified workers they need from other
countries, and some lawmakers are concerned about the economic toll
illegal immigrants impose on the state’s education and health care
systems.

Those are just a few of the problems. But state and federal lawmakers
are proposing dozens of fixes, from clamping down on the country’s
borders to requiring employers to play a bigger role in verifying
workers’ legal status.

“There
is widespread agreement we have a problem,” said Rep. Paul Weissman,
D-Louisville, chairman of a state legislative committee that considered
10 proposed laws on immigration this week. “The disagreement is on the
solutions.”

Colorado
lawmakers debated 10 Republican measures Feb. 21 for more than seven
hours, hearing sometimes emotional testimony from private citizens,
employer groups, lawyers, activists and employees on both sides of the
proposals.

While
all but three bills were killed, the issue is likely to resurface later
this session and is almost certain to be a major issue in election
campaigns later this year. A group called Defend Colorado Now is
gathering signatures for a proposed ballot initiative that would amend
the Colorado constitution to deny non-emergency medical and other
services to illegal immigrants.

“The
public is frustrated, as we are, by the federal government’s inability
or unwillingness to fix this problem,” said House Speaker Andrew
Romanoff, D-Denver. “So people are turning, understandably, to other
levels of government.”

The
debate has big implications for employers and the economy. Immigrant
workers — legal and otherwise — play an important role in many
Colorado industries, including tourism, retail, construction and
technology. One in seven U.S. workers is an immigrant, according to the
National Conference of State Legislatures (NCSL), which is based in
Denver.

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