SAN ANTONIO EXPRESS-NEWS August 30, 2006 Business leaders call for more guest workers
Challenged to speak louder in the immigration reform debate, San Antonio business leaders made clear their desire for reform that drastically increases quotas for guest workers and provides them a path to citizenship.
The business community joined the debate Wednesday, urging Bexar County's congressional delegation to help get Congress to pass legislation that takes into account both the economy and citizenship. Tamar Jacoby, a senior fellow of the Manhattan Institute and session moderator, said the hearing was held to counter U.S. House hearings that focused on border security to the exclusion of other immigration issues. After passing a bill last year that excluded a path to citizenship, the House refused to confer with the Senate, whose version did consider citizenship. The San Antonio Hispanic Chamber of Commerce sponsored Wednesday's session and taped it to provide elected officials a short video of business and political leaders' views on immigration, said chamber President A.J. Rodriguez. U.S. Rep. Charles Gonzalez encouraged business leaders to take a bolder approach on immigration reform, noting they had much at stake. The construction trades, for instance, are heavily dependent on unauthorized workers. Gonzalez was asking for strategies to respond to congressional leaders he believes are motivated by prejudice. "If we were in a good-faith debate, I believe our arguments would prevail," he said. However, "I don't think we are in a good-faith debate." Henry Cisneros, chairman of CityView companies and former mayor of San Antonio, said the House argument that security be dealt with first is a "trick." Opponents to a path to citizenship or guest worker program would then mobilize to make it impossible to do anything else, he said. But reform must include security, a guest worker program and a path to legal residency to have a successful immigration policy, Cisneros said. Robbie Greenblum, chairman of the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce/Free Trade Alliance Immigration Committee, said national security is dependent on identification. Using criminal penalties to force the estimated 12 million undocumented workers into the open is not realistic, he said. "That's not going to happen until people have a realistic shot at legal residency." Several speakers noted that the native-born population is shrinking and cannot fill the projected job growth today or tomorrow. Such nations as Germany and Japan with rigid immigration laws and declining birth rates suffered decades of recession. Citizens, given options, also avoid work that eliminates risk to personal comfort and safety. That makes it harder for police departments and the military to recruit eligible candidates, said Eddie Aldrete, a senior vice president of IBC Bank.
|