Too harsh on illegal aliens and a poor deal for U.S. workers?
Jun 21st 2007RavenBorder Security & Politics & Raven
It seems that everyone has issues with the immigration bill. Even the labor groups. And Hispanics.
Labor and Hispanic groups yesterday told senators to scrap their immigration bill and go back to the drawing board, saying that the proposal now before the Senate has become too harsh on illegal aliens and a poor deal for U.S. workers.
In separate press conferences, the Hispanic rights groups and labor leaders, including the AFL-CIO, joined a growing group of critics from both the left and the right who say current law is better than the immigration bill that President Bush and a small bipartisan group of senators are pushing.
“This takes a problem we have and, instead of solving it, makes it worse,” said Richard L. Trumka, secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO. He said the temporary-worker program that the bill sets up would hurt U.S. workers by providing a source of cheap labor that would depress Americans’ wages.
Meanwhile from the immigrant-advocacy side, a handful of Hispanic groups yesterday said the Senate bill started off poorly, became worse after the first two weeks of amendments and is now unfixable.
“Let’s go back to the drawing board,” said Lillian Rodriguez-Lopez, president of the Hispanic Federation.
It says a lot when the very people who we all think stand to gain the most from all this, are against it. Perhaps they see the backlash from American workers? Or maybe they just KNOW this is immoral and unethical. Either way, the bill is under constant fire from many people and the Congress needs to hear that. I am really starting to think it’s not that complicated at all. Take the current rules and laws and JUST. ENFORCE. THEM.
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