<DOC>
[109 Senate Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
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S. Hrg. 109-607
COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM: EXAMINING THE NEED FOR A GUEST WORKER
PROGRAM
=======================================================================
HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED NINTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JULY 5, 2006
__________
PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
__________
Serial No. J-109-94
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary
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COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
ARLEN SPECTER, Pennsylvania, Chairman
ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah PATRICK J. LEAHY, Vermont
CHARLES E. GRASSLEY, Iowa EDWARD M. KENNEDY, Massachusetts
JON KYL, Arizona JOSEPH R. BIDEN, Jr., Delaware
MIKE DeWINE, Ohio HERBERT KOHL, Wisconsin
JEFF SESSIONS, Alabama DIANNE FEINSTEIN, California
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina RUSSELL D. FEINGOLD, Wisconsin
JOHN CORNYN, Texas CHARLES E. SCHUMER, New York
SAM BROWNBACK, Kansas RICHARD J. DURBIN, Illinois
TOM COBURN, Oklahoma
Michael O'Neill, Chief Counsel and Staff Director
Bruce A. Cohen, Democratic Chief Counsel and Staff Director
C O N T E N T S
----------
STATEMENTS OF COMMITTEE MEMBERS
Page
Kennedy, Hon. Edward M., a U.S. Senator from the State of
Massachusetts.................................................. 2
Specter, Hon. Arlen, a U.S. Senator from the State of
Pennsylvania................................................... 1
WITNESSES
Barletta, Hon. Louis, Mayor, Hazelton, Pennsylvania.............. 11
Bird, Ronald, Chief Economist and Director, Office of Economic
Policy and Analysis, Department of Labor, Washington, D.C...... 19
Bloomberg, Hon. Michael R., Mayor, City of New York, New York,
New York....................................................... 4
Connelly, Eileen, Executive Director, SEIU Pennsylvania State
Council, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.............................. 30
Cortes, Reverend Luis, Jr., President and Chief Executive
Officer, Esperanza USA, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania............. 28
Eichenlaub, Dan, President, Eichenlaub, Inc., Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania................................................... 25
Hershey, Hon. Arthur, Pennsylvania House of Representatives, 13th
Legislative District, Chester County, Pennsylvania............. 20
Johnson, Sylvester M., Commissioner, Philadelphia Police
Department, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania......................... 9
Rossi, Carol, Corporate Director of Human Resources, Harrisburg
Hotel Corporation, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.................... 23
SUBMISSIONS FOR THE RECORD
Barletta, Hon. Louis, Mayor, Hazelton, Pennsylvania, statement... 40
Bird, Ronald, Chief Economist and Director, Office of Economic
Policy and Analysis, Department of Labor, Washington, D.C.,
statement...................................................... 45
Bloomberg, Hon. Michael R., Mayor, City of New York, New York,
New York, statement............................................ 51
Boston Globe, June 24, 2006, article............................. 62
Connelly, Eileen, Executive Director, SEIU Pennsylvania State
Council, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, statement................... 66
Cortes, Reverend Luis, Jr., President and Chief Executive
Officer, Esperanza USA, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, statement.. 70
Eichenlaub, Dan, President, Eichenlaub, Inc., Pittsburgh,
Pennsylvania, statement........................................ 78
Hershey, Hon. Arthur, Pennsylvania House of Representatives, 13th
Legislative District, Chester County, Pennsylvania, statement.. 80
Johnson, Sylvester M., Commissioner, Philadelphia Police
Department, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, statement.............. 83
Rossi, Carol, Corporate Director of Human Resources, Harrisburg
Hotel Corporation, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, statement......... 86
Simcox, Chris, Founder and President, Minuteman Civil Defense
Corps, Scottsdale, Arizona, statement.......................... 91
COMPREHENSIVE IMMIGRATION REFORM: EXAMINING THE NEED FOR A GUEST WORKER
PROGRAM
----------
WEDNESDAY, JULY 5, 2006
U.S. Senate,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.
The hearing was convened, pursuant to notice, at 10:20
a.m., in Kirby Auditorium, National Constitution Center, 525
Arch Street, Independence Mall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,
Hon. Arlen Specter, Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
Present: Senator Kennedy.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. ARLEN SPECTER, A U.S. SENATOR FROM
THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA
Chairman Specter. Good morning, ladies and gentlemen.
The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee will now proceed with
our hearing on immigration reform.
We thank the National Constitution Center and its
distinguished president, Joe Torsella, for opening up this
beautiful, historic museum to the Judiciary Committee to hold
this hearing this morning.
There could not be a more fitting place to have a hearing
on immigration, considering that we are a Nation of immigrants.
Across the green in Independence Hall, this country was
founded. On September 17, 1787, the drafters of the
Constitution signed the Constitution.
We have, in an adjacent room, bronze replicas of the
signers of the Constitution. George Washington presides there,
as does Benjamin Franklin, seated with all delegates from all
the States, especially Massachusetts and Pennsylvania, and a
few from Virginia as well.
Our C-SPAN audience is cordially invited to come to the
Constitution Center to see the exhibits which have made this
Nation so great.
One of the exhibits features a famous song writer by the
name if Irving Berlin. He is pictured in an Army uniform of the
Dough Boys in World War I. He came to this country shortly
after the turn of the 20th century, as did my father, Harry
Specter, who also was a Dough Boy, fought in World War I, and
was wounded in action in the Argonne Forest.
Irving Berlin wrote a song, which was not recognized until
Kate Smith sang it on Armistice Day of 1938, a song called
``God Bless America,'' which is just one of the contributions
of the immigrants to this country, immigrants which have made
this country the great Nation which it is today.
We are working on immigration reform in both the U.S. House
of Representatives and in the U.S. Senate. The House has passed
legislation which focuses on border control, and the Senate has
passed legislation which is comprehensive in nature, taking
into account border patrol and employer verification to see to
it that those who are employed are here legally, but also
dealing with a guest worker program, a program which is
necessary for the American economy, a program which has been
endorsed by President Bush and by the Speaker of the House of
Representatives, Dennis Hastert.
The Senate bill also has a program to deal with the 11
million undocumented immigrants. It is the view of the Senate
that you cannot sensibly create an under-class of fugitives who
pose problems for national security, who also pose problems for
law enforcement and crime control.
We are dead set against amnesty. Amnesty is for forgiving a
prior wrong. That is not what the Senate bill does. In order to
qualify to stay in the United States and to ultimately qualify
for citizenship, those undocumented immigrants must pay their
back taxes, must go through a criminal check to be sure they
are law- abiding citizens, must hold English, must hold a job
for a protracted period of time, and must contribute.
We have a series of witnesses today who will testify about
these people who are doing so much today for our country, and a
way to deal with them in a sound, comprehensive, humane way,
recognizing that we are a Nation of immigrants.
As you see, I am joined by my distinguished colleague,
Senator Ted Kennedy from Massachusetts, who has been a leader
in so many, many ways in the Senate, on civil rights, on
matters of health and education, and on matters of immigration
reform.
Senator Kennedy is in his forty-fourth year in the U.S.
Senate. He came to the Senate in November 1962 and has been in
this field a long time. We welcome him to Philadelphia. He
followed the same path as Benjamin Franklin.
[Applause]
STATEMENT OF HON. EDWARD M. KENNEDY, A U.S. SENATOR FROM THE
STATE OF MASSACHUSETTS
Senator Kennedy. Thank you. I, first of all, want to thank
Senator Specter, the Chairman of our Judiciary Committee, for
having this hearing, and having it here in Philadelphia, really
the home of so many of our rights and liberties. All those that
were a part of the Declaration of Independence and all those
that were a part of the Constitution came from other lands made
an extraordinary contribution to the greatest documents of
freedom and democracy in the world. All of us have benefited
from them here in these United States and in countries
throughout the world.
We know that today our system of immigration is broken, and
we know that there are simplistic answers to try to deal with
it. But Senator Specter and I agree, President Bush agrees,
Republicans and Democrats in the U.S. Senate agreed, that what
we really need is a comprehensive approach to deal with this
issue.
There are those that have a more simplified approach to
this issue that say that we just need enforcement only, but all
we have to do is look over the last 10 years of what happened
with just enforcement only.
We increased our border guards in the southern border by
over 300 percent. We spent more than $20 billion. Yet, the
numbers that have been coming across our southern border has
increased by 300 or 400 percent. Enforcement only is not going
to solve our problem.
We cannot solve the issue of our broken immigration laws by
simply building more fences at the border and demonizing the 12
million undocumented immigrants, declaring them, the priests,
and the Good Samaritans who help them to be criminals and
naively hoping that the 12 million will just go on back to
their country.
So we are working together. We are having this hearing
today because we believe in a comprehensive approach.
We talked earlier, Senator Specter and I, about the
contribution of immigrants. I read this morning in the
newspaper, coming down here from Boston, about the 76 troops on
duty in Iraq that, yesterday, took the oath of citizenship over
at the main hall of Saddam Hussein's old hunting palace.
The article quoted Ricardo Cortes who flew into Camp
Victory from Rimadi, one of the most hotly contested cities in
Iraq, where he spent the last few weeks clearing roads: ``I
love my job. It is dangerous. There are always things being
blown up. We have lost a couple of vehicles, but we make sure
other people can drive safely.''
The article described Jose DeLeon from Guatemala, who
talked about, the pledge to bear arms in the United States
which is included in the oath to become a naturalized citizen.
He said, ``I thought about those words,'' DeLeon said. ``It is
my second time of serving the country, but my country has given
me so much. I am grateful for it, and that is why I serve.''
Senator Specter and I, and our bipartisan group in the
Senate, want to welcome those that have something to contribute
to the country and keep out those that do not want to help make
America a better and stronger land.
[Applause]
Senator Kennedy. Today's hearing focuses on a number of the
important issues included in the legislation.
Finally, we have been asked repeatedly whether there is
really time enough to take action in the Senate and to get a
real bill passed. Senator Specter and I remember the times that
this country came together, and we have the opportunity to come
together.
We have the leaders of the great faiths in our country that
believe this is a moral issue. We have representatives of the
business community that understand the importance of a growing,
expanding, and thriving economy.
There are those that represent the worker community that
want to make sure we are not going to continue to have the
exploitation of the undocumented, as they are at this time,
with substandard wages and conditions. They know that the
protections that we have in this legislation will protect
workers from it.
We have a movement that Americans have seen across the
country, of people that spontaneously came out. These people
work hard, play by the rules, are devoted to their families,
devoted to their faith, and want to make America a better
country. So we ought to be able to find ways to do that. That
is what this hearing is about.
I thank, again, Senator Specter for having this hearing,
and I particularly welcome Mayor Bloomberg, who has been so
concerned about this issue. I know Senator Specter will
introduce the other witnesses and I look forward to hearing
their testimony.
Thank you, sir.
Chairman Specter. Thank you very much, Senator Kennedy.
Our practice at a Senate hearing is not to applaud, even
when you hear words you like, such as those just uttered by
Senator Kennedy. So, just a word of our rules.
We lead with the distinguished mayor of New York City,
Mayor Michael Bloomberg, a graduate of Johns Hopkins in
Engineering in 1964, and an MBA from Harvard. He had a
distinguished career on Wall Street until, his resume says, he
was fired in 1980, leading him to organize his own company,
which is worldwide, employing 8,000 people.
Elected as mayor of New York City in 2001 and reelected as
mayor of New York City in 2005, he has brought a sense of
dynamism, a sense of achievement, and a sense of spirit, the
second-toughest job in the United States--maybe the toughest
job in the United States.
He came down this morning in a helicopter. He is reputed to
fly his own helicopter. He is right on time, and we are really
honored to have him with us.
We have a 5-minute rule on opening statements, leaving the
maximum amount of time for questions and answers.
Mayor Bloomberg, the floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF HON. MICHAEL R. BLOOMBERG, MAYOR, CITY OF NEW
YORK, NEW YORK, NEW YORK
Mayor Bloomberg. Thank you very much. Good morning,
Chairman Specter and Senator Kennedy. Thank you for having me
and for calling this hearing.
Immigration reform is really one of the most important
issues that Congress faces. I think no city would be more
affected by the outcome of that debate than New York City.
To begin with, let me just say how appropriate I think it
is that this hearing is held here in Philadelphia. Two hundred
and thirty years ago yesterday, just around the corner from
here, our Founding Fathers adopted the greatest statement on
the right to self-government ever written, and among those who
signed the Declaration of Independence were nine immigrants.
It is also true at every other critical stage of American
history. From ratification of the Constitution, the Civil War,
to the industrial revolution, to the computer age, immigrants
have propelled America to greatness.
Today, we really remain a Nation of immigrants. People from
around the world continue to come here, seeking opportunity,
and they continue to make America the most dynamic Nation in
the world.
But it is clear that we also have a fundamental problem on
our hands. Our immigration laws are broken. It is as if we
expect border control agents to do what a century of Communism
could not, defeat the natural forces of supply and demand and
defeat the natural human instinct for freedom and opportunity.
You might as well sit on the beach and tell the tide not to
come in!
As long as America remains a Nation dedicated to the
proposition that all men are created equal, endowed by the
Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are
life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, people from near
and far will continue to see entry into our country.
New York City alone is home to more than 3 million
immigrations, who make up nearly 40 percent of our entire
population, and about half a million came to our city, and
continue to come, illegally. Let us be honest. They arrive for
a very good reason: they want a better life for themselves and
their families, and our businesses need them and hire them.
Although they broke the law by illegally crossing our
borders or over-staying their visas and our businesses broke
the law by employing them, our city's economy would be a shell
of itself had they not, and it would collapse if they were
deported. The same holds true for our Nation.
For our children to have a bright future, two things are
true: a strong America needs a constant source of new
immigrants, and in a post-9/11 world, a secure America needs to
make sure that these immigrants arrive here legally.
We have a right and a duty to encourage people to come, and
at the same time to ensure that no one who is on a terrorist
watch list sneaks into our country. Right now, we neither
invite those we want, nor keep out those we do not.
If we are going to both strengthen our National security
and keep our economy growing, you, our elected legislators,
must devise a comprehensive approach to immigration reform.
If you could bear with me for a little more than the 5
minutes, I would like to enumerate what those are. I believe
such an approach embodies four key principles: 1) reducing
incentives to come; 2) creating more lawful opportunity; 3)
reducing illegal access; and 4) accepting reality.
Let me, briefly, outline each one of them. First, we must
reduce the incentive to come here illegally. As a business
owner, I know the absurdity of our existing immigration
regulations all too well. Employers are required to check the
status of all job applicants, but not to do anything more than
just eyeball their documents.
In fact, hypocritically, the Federal law that Congress
wrote, under that, employers are not even permitted to ask
probing questions. As a result, fake green cards are a dime a
dozen; you can buy one for $50 to $100. Fake Social Security
cards are also available. For maybe $125, you can get both
cards: such a deal.
As most members of the U.S. Senate recognize, we absolutely
must have a Federal data base that will allow employers to
verify the status of all job applicants. But for this data base
to have any value, we must also ensure that the documentation
job applicants present is incorruptible.
That means we need to create a biometric employment card
containing unique information, fingerprints or DNA, for
example. Every current job holder or applicant should be
required to obtain a card, and every business should be
required to check its validity against the Federal data base.
In theory, we already have such a card. It is called your
Social Security card. But being a government product,
naturally, its technology is way behind the times. By taking
advantage of current technology, we can provide the Federal
Government with the tools necessary to enforce our immigration
laws and protect workers from exploitive and abusive
conditions.
I want to be clear that this is not a national identity
card, as some have suggested. This is simply a Social Security
card for the 21st century. If you do not work, you do not need
a card. But everyone who works would need to have an employment
card, and everybody that works here legally already has one.
There must also be stiff penalties for businesses that fail
to conduct checks or ignore their results. Holding businesses
accountable is the crucial step because it is the only way to
reduce the incentive to come here illegally.
Requiring employers to verify citizenship status was the
promise of the 1986 immigration bill, but it was an empty
promise, never enforced by the Federal Government. The failure
to enforce the law was largely in response to pressure from
businesses, which is understandable, because businesses needed
access to a larger labor supply than Federal immigration laws
allowed.
Apparently fixing that problem by increasing legal
immigration as opposed to looking the other way on illegal
immigration was never seriously considered by Congress or the
administration until very recently.
Instead, by winking at businesses that hired illegal
immigrants, the Federal Government sent a clear signal to those
in other countries: if you can make it into our country, you
will have no trouble qualifying for employment.
So it is no surprise. People have been coming at such high
levels that our border controls simply cannot stop them. Unless
we reduce the incentive to come here illegally, increasing our
Border Patrol will have little impact on the number of people
who enter legally. We will waste the money spent, jeopardize
lives, and deceive the public with a false promise of security
that everyone knows we cannot deliver.
Second, we must increase lawful opportunity to overseas
workers. Science, medicine, education, and modern industries
today are growing faster overseas than here in the United
States, reversing a centuries-long advantage that we have
enjoyed.
Baby boomers are starting to retire. America's birth rate
continues to slow and we do not have enough workers to pay for
our retirement benefits. The economics are very simple: we need
more workers than we have. That means we must increase the
number of visas for overseas manual workers who help provide
the essential muscle and elbow grease we need to keep our
economy running.
It also means we must increase the number of visas for
immigrant engineers, doctors, scientists, and other
professionally trained workers, the innovators of tomorrow's
economy, and we must give all of them, as well as foreign
students, the opportunity to earn permanent status so they can
put their knowledge and entrepreneurial spirit to use for our
country.
Why should we not reap the benefits of the skills foreign
students have obtained here? If we do not allow them in, or if
we force them to go home, we will be sending the future of
science and the jobs of tomorrow with them.
Recent studies put lie to the old argument that immigrants
take jobs away from native-born Americans and significantly
depress wages. Quite the contrary. They are what makes our
economy work. In most cases, those here illegally are filling
low-wage, low-skilled jobs that Americans just simply do not
want.
Global economic forces are responsible for the declines in
the real wages of unskilled workers and occur regardless of
whether immigrants are present in a community.
Moreover, the total economic effect of any slight wage
increased produced by immigration is more than offset by
substantial increases in productivity. To keep businesses and
people investing in America, we need to ensure that we have
workers for all types of jobs.
Third, we must reduce illegal access to our borders, which,
as I have said, is a matter of national urgent security. As
President Bush recognizes, in some areas, particularly in
border towns, additional fencing may be required; in open
desert areas, a virtual wall created through sensors or cameras
would be far more effective.
However, even after we double the number of border agents,
they will remain overwhelmed by the flood of people attempting
to enter illegally. Only by embracing the first two principles,
reducing incentives and increasing lawful opportunity, will
border security become a manageable task.
Members of the House of Representatives want to control the
borders. So do we all. But by believing that increasing Border
Patrol alone will achieve that goal is either naive and short-
sighted, or cynical and duplicitous. No wall or army can stop
hundreds of thousands of people each year.
Fourth, and finally, we need to get real about the people
who are now living in this country illegally, in many cases
raising families and paying taxes. The idea of deporting 11 or
12 million people, about as many as live in the entire State of
Pennsylvania, is pure fantasy.
Even if we wanted to, it would be physically impossible to
carry out. If we attempted it, it would be perhaps the largest
round-up and deportation in world history. The social and
economic consequences would be devastating to this country.
Let me ask you, do you really want to spend billions of
dollars on a round-up and deportation program that would split
families in two, only to have the very same people, and
millions more, illegally enter our country again? Of course
not. America is better than that, and smarter than that.
That is why I do not believe that the American people will
support the short-sighted approach to this issue taken by the
House which would make felons of illegal immigrants.
The Senate approach, the tiered approach, I think is flawed
as well. Requiring some people to report to deport through
guest worker programs, while leaving their spouses, children,
and mortgages behind is no less naive than thinking we can
deport all 12 million people. What incentive would people have
to show up?
In fact, this approach would just create an enormous
incentive for fraud, and there can be little doubt that the
black market for false documentation would remain strong and
real enforcement impossible.
There is only one practical solution, and it is a solution
that respects the history of our Nation: offer those already
here the opportunity to earn permanent status and keep their
families together.
For decades, the Federal Government has tacitly welcomed
them into the work force, collecting their income and Social
Security taxes, which about two-thirds of undocumented workers
pay, and benefited immeasurably from their contributions to our
country.
Now, instead of pointing fingers about the past, let us
accept the present for what it is by bringing people out of the
shadows and focus on the future of casting those shadows aside
permanently.
As the debate continues between the House and the Senate, I
urge Members of Congress to move past the superficial debate
over the definition of amnesty. Buzz words and polls should not
dictate national policies. We need Congress to lead from the
front, not the back.
That means adopting a solution that is enforceable,
sustainable, and compassionate, and that enables the American
economy to thrive in the 21st century. Perhaps now, more than
ever, it is time to vote our future rather than pander to
rabble rousers and parochial fears.
Only by embracing all four of these principles I have
outlined today can we achieve these goals. If one principle is
abandoned, we will be no better off than we were after the
passage of the law in 1986.
A successful solution to our border problems cannot rest on
a wall alone. It must be built on a foundation strong enough to
support it, and to support our continued economic growth and
prosperity.
Before I close, let me add just one more thing, Mr.
Chairman, if I may. There is one more crucially important issue
that should be raised about our policies toward those that are
here illegally.
Members of the House of Representatives have recently
attached an amendment to the appropriations bill that would
deny all immigrant Homeland Security and Department of Justice
funding to any city or State deemed in violation of the 1996
Federal law.
That law prohibits restrictions on any local and State
employee from contacting the Federal Government about someone's
immigration status. New York City cooperates fully with the
Federal Government when an illegal immigrant commits a criminal
act, but our city's social services' health and education
policies are not designed to facilitate the deportation of
otherwise law- abiding residents.
Our general policy in this area protects the
confidentiality of law-abiding immigrants, regardless of their
status, when they report a crime or visit a hospital or send
their children to school. Without those protections, all of our
residents would be less safe and more likely to be at risk for
disease.
Do we really want people who could have information about
criminals, including potential terrorists, to be afraid to go
to the police? Do we really want people with contagious
diseases not to seek medical treatment? Do we really want
people not to get vaccinated against communicable diseases?
Our policy is carefully crafted to comply with the 1996
law, but some Members of Congress just do not like it. They
have asked the Department of Justice to review all local and
State policies concerning this issue. We believe the review
will validate our approach.
But whatever the findings, let me be perfectly clear: the
way to deal with this issue is not by reducing the safety and
security of our Nation. There is already much, too much
politics in Homeland Security funding, which is one reason why
New York City has consistently been short-changed of the money
we need to protect our city, but this one would really take the
cake.
If Congress attempts to cutoff all of our Homeland Security
funding, not to mention Department of Justice funding for many
other essential programs, I promise you, you will have one heck
of a battle on your hands.
We are not going to let Congress cut and run from New York
City, nor can our Nation afford to do it. New York City remains
the top terrorist target, and if Congress passes this amendment
no one will cheer louder than Al- Qaeda.
Let me close by thanking you, along with the President, for
taking this issue of immigration up. I really do urge all the
members of your Committee to reject the false promises of easy
answers and have the courage to do something that really is
necessary and that will work, even if it means to standing up
to businesses and those with nativist impulses to ensure our
Nation's security and our Nation's prosperity.
Thank you very much.
Chairman Specter. Thank you very much, Mayor Bloomberg.
[The prepared statement of Mayor Bloomberg appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Specter. We now turn to Philadelphia Police
Commissioner Sylvester Johnson, a 41-year veteran of the
Philadelphia Police Department. He joined law enforcement while
I was District Attorney of Philadelphia a few years back, and
has been Commissioner since January 4, 2002. He is the
recipient of many distinguished awards for valor and
competency. He was a key member of the hostage negotiating
team.
Thank you very much for joining us, Commissioner, and we
look forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF COMMISSIONER SYLVESTER JOHNSON, PHILADELPHIA
POLICE DEPARTMENT, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Commissioner Johnson. Thank you very much Senator.
First, I would like to say I agree with everything that
Mayor Bloomberg said. In addition to that, I just have a couple
more things to add.
Good morning, Senator Specter and Senator Kennedy. Thank
you for inviting me here to speak today.
Illegal immigration is a serious problem. However, local
law enforcement is not in a position to successfully enforce
immigration laws and should not be compelled to be the primary
enforcer of these Federal regulations.
The Philadelphia Police Department's first concern is
public safety. The police need the community's trust and
cooperation to fight crime, and want to keep a good
relationship with all members of the immigrant community. If an
undocumented person is a victim or a witness of a crime, we
want them to come forward. We don't want them to avoid local
police for fear of deportation.
Of course, we will investigate anyone involved in the
commission of a crime, regardless of immigration status. We
enjoy a good relationship with the Federal agency that enforces
immigration laws, and that is one way to ensure that illegal
immigrants involved in criminal activity do not slip through
either system.
Additionally, we do not have the resources needed to
enforce immigration laws. Overall, crime is down slightly.
However, like many cities, we are dealing with an increase in
shootings and murders, and a substantial decrease in Federal
and other funding.
Mandatory immigration enforcement would overwhelm police
resources and that of other city agencies. No city should be
punished for not enforcing immigration laws. By reducing funds,
we will be affecting the public safety functions of all city
agencies.
There are also a number of legal aspects to consider. Local
police primarily enforce the criminal provisions of State law.
States laws, and sometimes local ordinances, mandate our
responsibilities and limit our conduct. In States with more
restrictive laws, local police may be limited in their action
against illegal immigrants. In these cases, Federal enforcement
would be more effective.
Immigration law is complex. The civil and criminal aspects
are often difficult to distinguish. A tremendous amount of time
would be needed to train officers about this area. Keeping
officers off the streets for long periods of time for training,
when violence is increasing could be disastrous. As I have
often said, we will not break the law to enforce the law.
As an officer, I promised to uphold the Constitution, and
will keep my oath. Civil suits have already been brought
against local police in the United States that had assisted in
enforcing immigration laws. Federal and State authority to
enforce such laws would need to be clarified.
The Major City Chiefs, an organization consisting of fifty-
seven chiefs of police, researched this issue and suggested
several possible solutions. These include securing our borders,
enforcing existing laws, prohibiting the hiring of illegal
immigrants, consulting and sharing intelligence with local
police, having local law enforcement continue to commit
resources against all criminal violators, clarification of
authority allowing local police to enforce immigration law,
limited liability for such, removing civil immigration
detainees from the NCIC system, and incentive-based system of
full Federal funding instead of reductions or a shifting
approach would also be beneficial.
Local law enforcement is the first line of defense in
protecting our communities. Atrocities can occur when people
put nationality, race, and ethnicity before humanity. The
Philadelphia Police Department will do everything within our
authority to protect and serve anyone who enters our city.
Illegal immigration is a serious problem. It is in
everyone's interests to allow those with the expertise,
experience, and resources to concentrate on the legal issues.
We all benefit when local law enforcement can maintain a good
relationship with the immigrant community, allowing us to
protect and serve the populace.
In addition to that, law enforcement, by itself, will never
change the quality of life. We will never arrest the way out of
the problem. International terrorism is a shame, but domestic
terrorism is just as bad. Last year, we lost 380 people in the
city of Philadelphia. We need our resources to combine in an
effort to decrease crime.
Thank you.
Chairman Specter. Thank you very much, Commissioner.
[The prepared statement of Commissioner Johnson appears as
a submission for the record.]
Chairman Specter. Our next witness is Mayor Louis Barletta,
from Hazelton, Pennsylvania. He is marked as one of the 10
outstanding mayors in the State. He was elected to the position
in the year 2000, after having served on Hazelton's city
council, and was reelected in 2004.
Thank you very much for joining us, Mayor Barletta.
We look forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF HON. LOUIS BARLETTA, MAYOR, CITY OF HAZELTON,
HAZELTON, PENNSYLVANIA
Mayor Barletta. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and
Senator Kennedy. Thank you for your invitation to be here
today so I can address an extremely important issue facing our
city: illegal immigration.
Late on the night of May 10, 2006, a 29-year-old Hazelton
resident, Derrick Kishline, was standing near his truck a few
blocks from the heart of our downtown. Two men approached him
and shot him in the face from about a foot away. Kishline fell
to the pavement and died.
The next day, a 14-year-old boy took out a gun and started
firing shots in a crowded city playground, a place I consider
sacred ground. Both of these shocking incidents forced Hazelton
Police Department detectives and offers to work more than 36
straight hours to solve these crimes.
Four were arrested in the murder case; all four are illegal
immigrants. The teenaged gunman was caught and taken into
custody while he was carrying 10 bags of crack cocaine. He was
also an illegal immigrant.
A few days later, we had a Federal drug bust in Hazelton.
Some of those arrested were also illegal immigrants. We have
seen a dramatic increase in gang- style graffiti, some of which
has included threats to kill police officers.
This graffiti has marred an award-winning redevelopment
project that replaced vacant factories with family homes. Those
homes and families are threatened by hoodlums who do not
respect people or their property. As the mayor, I have had
enough.
Hazelton is a small city, an all-American city. We are in
the heart of Pennsylvania's anthracite coal region, so we have
gone through hard times in the past.
As for our population, our city has exploded from about
23,000 people in the last Census to just over 31,000, according
to recent estimates. This is more than a 30 percent increase in
just a few years. We have struggled to increase our services to
cope with that growth. Our annual budget is just $7 million.
For decades, we might have had a murder once every 7 years,
then people would spend the next 6 years talking about it. But
the shocking death of Derrick Kishline was the second murder in
the city within eight months. Hazelton's residents have been
shaken by these, and other high-profile crimes.
The 31 officers of our police department have been
stretched to the limit. They have spent hundreds of hours, and
the city has spent thousands of dollars, investigating crimes
committed by illegal immigrants. Illegal immigration is a drain
on Hazelton's limited resources.
Every domestic incident, every traffic accident, every
noise complaint, each time we send our police department, fire
department, or Code Enforcement Office to respond, it costs
taxpayer dollars.
Every minute spent by a police officer, fire fighter, or
city official in tackling a problem created by an illegal
immigrant is a minute they are not serving the legal population
of my city.
We are taking action. I proposed, and the city council
tentatively approved, the Illegal Immigration Relief Act. This
act has three components. One would punish companies that hire
illegal immigrants by denying them permits, making it harder
for them to renew permits and forcing the loss of city
business.
The second component would hold landlords accountable.
Landlords who knowingly rent to illegal immigrants may be fined
$1,000 for every illegal immigrant occupying their properties.
A final part of the ordinance makes English the language of
official city business in Hazelton.
Let me be clear. This ordinance is intended to make
Hazelton one of the most difficult places in the United States
for illegal immigrants. Only legal immigrants are welcome in
Hazelton. Illegal immigrants are not welcome because they are
draining our limited resources. My city has taken the first
step in securing our future, but we need help.
One of the men who allegedly killed Derrick Kishline had
been arrested eight times before. He spent more than a year and
a half in jail on various charges, and then he came to
Hazelton. What is particularly troubling is that he, as an
illegal immigrant, should never have been in the country in the
first place, let alone in Hazelton, Pennsylvania.
If others had done their jobs by keeping this murderous
thug and his cohorts out of the country, out of Hazelton,
Derrick Kishline may still be alive today and Hazelton might
not have been forced to take the dramatic steps we are taking
now. We deal with illegal immigration every single day.
In Hazelton is not some abstract debate about walls and
amnesty, but it is a tangible, very real problem. This is an
issue that will affect every city, borough, and township in
Pennsylvania, and the United States, if it does not already.
Based on the response we have received in Hazelton, I believe
it has.
Chairman Specter, if I may have just a few more seconds.
Chairman Specter. Proceed, Mayor Barletta.
Mayor Barletta. Since I proposed this measure in mid-June,
we have been inundated with more than 7,000 e- mails from
people across the country. We have received, overwhelmingly,
positive feedback from literally every State, from Alaska and
Hawaii, to Maine, our southern border States, and even from our
soldiers fighting for our freedom overseas.
We have also sent copies of our ordinance to municipalities
around the country. Several townships and boroughs around
Hazelton have already begun implementing their own versions.
Communities are crying out for relief. Like every other
elected official in the Nation, I took an oath of office to
protect my citizens. The measure I proposed seeks to protect
the people of Hazelton.
Cities like Hazelton are the lifeblood of America. We are
buckling under the strain of illegal immigration, and we need
help. If we cannot get it from outside our borders, then we
must, and we will, take steps from within to secure our future.
Thank you for your time.
Chairman Specter. Thank you very much, Mayor Barletta.
We now move to the portion of our hearing will there will
be questions from Senator Kennedy and myself. We will limit our
questioning rounds to 5 minutes; we have a very large second
panel.
Mayor Bloomberg, you heard Mayor Barletta describe the
problems of crime in his city. Obviously, in New York City you
could testify to many, many more such incidents in a city the
size of New York. It is understandable, as you have testified,
about not wanting to report crime victims who may not be here
legally, or people who are securing indispensable medical help.
But what balance is there, and what role do you see, if
any, for New York public officials, the police department, when
finding immigrants who are the criminal element, charged with
serious crimes, with substantial evidence? What role do you
see, if any, for reporting them to the immigration officials
for deportation?
Mayor Bloomberg. Well, I do not know what Hazelton,
Pennsylvania's experience has been. Our experience in New York
is, when you look at who commits crimes, yes, some crimes are
committed by illegal immigrants and lots of crimes are
committed by people who are third- or fourth-generation
Americans. That is just the truth of the matter.
I am sympathetic to Mayor Barletta, but I think that the
only way we are going to solve the problem is to have the ID
card that is non-forgeable, to do exactly what he is doing in
his city, hold employers meaningfully accountable so that they
do not go and----
Chairman Specter. But when you apprehend someone who is
charged with a crime, with substantial evidence----
Mayor Bloomberg. If you are arrested in New York City for a
crime, we check your immigration status and do followup with
the INS. What we do not do, is we do not check your immigration
status if you show up at a hospital needing help, if you send
your kid to school.
The truth of the matter is, in New York City--and I think
it is true nationally--75 percent of all of the undocumented
pay taxes, pay Social Security, and do not take any of the
benefits.
Chairman Specter. Mayor Bloomberg, let me move back to
Mayor Barletta. There is a limited amount of time here.
Chairman Specter. Mayor Barletta, you talk about holding
landlords responsible. Is that going to turn us into a Nation
of informants? How far should you go in identifying
undocumented immigrants if they are seeking something which is
lawful or, as Mayor Bloomberg points out, getting medical care?
Mayor Barletta. In the city of Hazelton, the greatest asset
we have, Senator Specter, is the quality of life. We are small-
town USA. People that live in Hazelton live there because they
want their children to be able to play on the playgrounds.
They do not want to be terrified by some of the high-
profile crimes that we have seen in our city, mainly by people
who do not belong in the country. We are going to relieve the
burden from the landlords and take it upon the city to help
them with the documentation. I believe this is what cities such
as Hazelton have to do.
The debate that I have been following, both in the Senate
and the House, addresses mainly our southern border and guest
worker programs. I can assure you, the individuals I talked
about today are not working anywhere and they are not entering,
I believe, through the southern border.
Chairman Specter. Commissioner Johnson, what about the
Philadelphia Police Department, where you find someone who is
charged with a crime with substantial evidence, do you turn
them over to INS where they are undocumented immigrants?
Commissioner Johnson. Yes. We do the same thing that New
York does. Our concern is for people who are a victim of a
crime, people who are witnesses to a crime. Some of our best
intelligence comes from people in the immigrant community. I
think that once we start enforcing laws to the point that the
first thing we ask a person who has been victim is, show me
your green card, before they share the fact that they have been
victimized we will cause more harm than good. The Major City
Chiefs discussed these points, fifty-six police chiefs
throughout the entire Nation. In order to become a Major City
Chief, you have to have a population of 500,000. We debated
this constantly and we came to the conclusion that law
enforcement took years and years to form relationships with the
immigrant community. Here in the city of Philadelphia, we have
the Asian Commissioners Advisory Council, the African American
Advisory Council, and other groups.
Once we start enforcing immigration law, then we are going
to lose that contact. We are going to lose that response from
the immigrant community because they are not going to contact
us. Nor will they contact us if they have information about
other people, about other violence-type issues, or even with
national security. So we are very concerned about that.
Our other concern was that if we did not follow this as
Majority City Chiefs, then our entire city would be punished,
from the health department to others. You know, law
enforcement, by itself, is never going to change the quality of
life. It really has to be a holistic-type approach with the
health department and other agencies in this city. It is about
public security, public health.
So again, as far as law enforcement is concerned, I said,
again, we had 380 homicides last year. We also had 1,800
shootings here in the city of Philadelphia. I can tell you,
less than 1 percent were illegal immigrants.
Chairman Specter. Thank you very much, Commissioner.
One final question, after my red light is on. Mayor
Bloomberg, if you did not have undocumented immigrants working
in New York City in the hotels, restaurants, and hospitals as
domestics, what would the impact be on your city's economy?
Mayor Bloomberg. It would be devastating for our city. We
estimate there are 500,000 undocumented living in a city of 8.1
million people. A lot of them provide the elbow grease to make
the traditional industries you have talked about, whether it is
the tourism-related industries of transportation, food and
beverage, it is home health care, or it is providing a lot of
the cleaning services and driving taxicabs and those kinds of
things, but the truth of the matter is, our undocumented go all
the way up the ladder to senior people in lots of different
institutions.
It is just, without them, the city could not survive in the
ways it is. We would not have the tax base for those that need
services and we would not have the compassionate kinds of
government that I think we have provided.
I was listening to Mayor Barletta talk about the size of
Hazelton. It reminded me that New York City may have 8.1
million people, but we have communities, hundreds of them, of
the same size that Hazelton, Pennsylvania is, and our people
want to be able to go out in their local communities, to parks,
to schools, and on the streets and be safe. In fact, they are
safe, and we have been able to do that.
The reason we have done it, is we have the world's greatest
police department--no offense intended.
[Laughter.]
You can have the second.
[Laughter.]
But that is where the tax base comes from to provide that.
The immigrant community in New York City has helped us, it has
not hurt us. It is New York City's great strength rather than
being a weakness.
Chairman Specter. I notice Mayor Barletta raising his hand.
No question to you, Mayor Barletta, but if you want to comment,
even though I am over time, you may.
Mayor Barletta. Thank you. The point I want to make today
is the opposite point of view, such as big cities, how they are
dealing with it. In small-town America, we have very limited
resources to provide services to people, a very small amount of
money.
And when I see those resources being used where they should
not be, it is concerning and it does affect the quality of
life. Our budget, as I said, is minuscule. We are spending the
little amount that I do have chasing illegal immigrants around
the city of Hazelton.
Chairman Specter. Thank you very much, Mayor Barletta.
Senator Kennedy?
Senator Kennedy. Thank you. Thank you very much.
Mayor Barletta, you agreed that we, the Federal Government,
have some responsibility about those bad actors as well whether
they come and settle in your community or they settle in New
York. Would you agree with that?
Mayor Barletta. Absolutely.
Senator Kennedy. And we really have not done all the things
that we should have done. Would you not agree with that?
Mayor Barletta. I am dealing with it today.
Senator Kennedy. So what happens is, if we have a broken
system, which I think all of us understand, then people are
left to try and deal with it in whatever way they feel they
have to deal with it. You stated your views about how to deal
with this for your own community.
Would you not agree that if we were able to stop the bad
actors from coming in here, that that would be useful in terms
of your own community? If we were able to do this in a national
way, in a way that could be meaningful--it may take some time--
would that not help small towns and communities as well?
Mayor Barletta. Yes, Senator Kennedy, if we secured all
ports of entry in the United States, not just the southern
border. The actors that I am talking about are not working in
factories or in plants or looking for a better life, they are
dealing drugs and terrorizing good people in our community.
Senator Kennedy. It is also not just the borders, is it,
though?
Mayor Barletta. No.
Senator Kennedy. Because 40 percent of those that are here
undocumented just overstayed their visas, coming here
legitimately, becoming lost and getting into the community.
So we have to do something about those individuals that
come here legally and then just become a part of the
undocumented, and those that come across the border illegally.
We also have to deal with this in a comprehensive way, would
you say, or not?
Mayor Barletta. I agree. I also believe that it will take
local municipalities to deal with it. I know the debate is
whether this is a Federal issue or a local issue. I believe it
is a local issue, because we do deal with it every day.
Senator Kennedy. Well, it certainly would be a local issue
because you get the impact of bad actors coming in there. But,
it is perhaps something needed at the Federal level, because we
have the responsibility of securing our borders and enacting
immigration reform.
I think that if we were able to get that done, and have it
done right and done well, then many of the smaller communities
might not have the problem that you have. We all understand we
have a problem.
Mayor Bloomberg, your testimony, and also the
Commissioner's testimony, is enormously important and
significant. You are the mayor of the city that has been
targeted by terrorists, and I think most would agree that it is
a city that is targeted repeatedly. It can be New York City, or
its subway, or maybe the large cities in Pennsylvania or my
city of Boston.
So there really is this National debate about what local
law enforcement officials ought to do in this situation, and it
is a hotly contested issue and question. Senator Specter and I
saw it on the mark-up of our committee, which was divided, and
we saw it on the floor of the U.S. Senate.
So you and the Commissioner expressed your view with
clarity and passion, that the most effective way of dealing
with the issues of enforcement in terms of national security,
is by intelligence gathering. This is very significant and if
you can just talk about this for a minute.
Let me just mention one thing. If States want to train
people on the enforcement of civil immigration laws, the
Federal Government provides some training for that.
The State of Alabama has done that training, and we have
the results. At least one story shows that they found that of
all the drivers that were pulled over in the State of Alabama,
50 percent of them were Latinos, in a State that only has 5
percent Latino population.
They drew the conclusion, at least in this article that it
lent itself to sort of racial profiling. I would ask, Mr.
Chairman, that this June 24th, 2006 Boston Globe article be
made a part of the record--
That aside, how do you respond, as a person that has the
prime responsibility, obviously with the Department of Homeland
Security, for the security of your community?
In terms of intelligence gathering, as the mayor, what have
you found are the advantages or the disadvantages of being able
to work with the community in order to provide more security
for the city of New York, or for Philadelphia? From your
perspective, don't you think law enforcement ought to be
looking for criminals rather than immigration violators?
Mayor Bloomberg. Well, Senator, at least in terms of New
York City, I was looking around this audience and I do not see
anybody that I do not think looks like an immigrant, including
up here on this stage. We all look like immigrants, and that is
one of the problems. You do not know who to go after.
So, you have to have a policy that does not profile,
because it would not work and it is also wrong, and you have to
have something that will allow companies and the mayor of
Hazelton to know with certainty who is here legally and who is
not.
We talk about security. I have talked to some of the 1,000
police officers that we have dedicated to intelligence and
counter-terrorism in New York City, and a number of them think
that if Al-Qaeda was going to send somebody here, they are more
likely to come across our northern border than our southern
border.
So when you talk about securing borders, I am never sure
what you are really talking about. We have coastlines of a
couple thousand miles, both on the East Coast and the West
Coast.
If you are going to build a real fence around this country,
the order of magnitude of funds and troops that you would need
is something that, if anybody stopped to think about it, they
would realize, that is just not possible.
The good news is that we found, in New York City, if you
enforce the laws fairly, you have exactly the same problem with
documented and undocumented, with people that have been here
forever and people who have just arrived. There are lots of
reasons why people commit crimes. Where they come from does not
happen to appear to be one of them.
Senator Kennedy. My time is up.
Commissioner, would you say just a brief word?
Commissioner Johnson. I have my lieutenant in charge, one
of our Intelligence people, right here today. We talked prior
to coming here. The intelligence that is coming from the
immigrant community is very, very important.
The other thing is if a person is victimized, we do not
want them to worry that we are going to profile them and
question them about their green card. We need their help.
I look around the room also. I said I have an Asian
Advisory Council, and there are about 40 of them sitting in
this room today, or at least there is a large number of them
here today. It took us years to build that type of
relationship. I think once we start enforcing immigration laws,
we are going to lose that relationship within a matter of
weeks.
Senator Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank the panel
very much.
Chairman Specter. Thank you very much, Senator Kennedy.
Thank you, Mayor Bloomberg, Mayor Barletta, and
Commissioner Johnson. We very much appreciate your coming in.
We now turn to our second panel. Mr. Ronald Bird,
Representative Art Hershey, Ms. Eileen Connelly, Reverend Louis
Cortes, Mr. Eichenlaub, and Ms. Rossi.
Would you all please step forward while we thank our
departing panelists?
[Applause.]
[Whereupon, at 11:15 a.m. the Committee was recessed and
resumed back on the record at 11:22 a.m.]
Chairman Specter. Our hearing will resume. Our first
witness is a representative from the U.S. Department of Labor,
Mr. Ronald Bird, who we thank the Secretary of Labor, the
distinguished Secretary Elaine Chao, for sending you here, Mr.
Bird.
He is the Chief Economist and Director of the Office of
Economic Policy and Analysis. His work includes market data and
preparation of materials in support for briefings on employment
status and general economic conditions.
He has a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of North
Carolina, and has a Bachelor's degree from Huntington College,
Montgomery, Alabama.
Thank you for coming in today, Mr. Bird. We look forward to
your testimony.
STATEMENT OF RONALD BIRD, CHIEF ECONOMIST AND DIRECTOR, OFFICE
OF ECONOMIC POLICY AND ANALYSIS, DEPARTMENT OF LABOR,
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Mr. Bird. Thank you, Senator Specter, Senator Kennedy. I am
pleased to be here and to provide you with some information
about the demographics of the labor force, and recent trends.
I have prepared a statement with tables and charts which
has been provided to you, and I will briefly summarize what I
brought with me. I would be pleased to answer any questions you
have.
The American labor force is large. At 151 million in May of
2006, the U.S. labor force was the third-largest among the
nations of the world, second behind only China and India.
The U.S. labor force is diverse. The American labor force
provides opportunity to people from a wider array of races,
ethnic backgrounds, and cultures than any other nation.
The U.S. labor market is strong. Unemployment in May of
2006 was a low 4.6 percent, the lowest since July of 2001. We
have enjoyed 33 consecutive months of job growth, with payroll
employment growing by over 5.3 million since the post-recession
turn-around in 2003.
Unemployment today is below historical averages. Since
1948, the unemployment rate has averaged 5.6 percent, compared
to today's 4.6 percent. Today's low unemployment rate is an
important factor to consider and it is real.
Unemployment is not low because potential workers are
sitting on the sidelines. Discouraged workers and others at the
labor force margins, those not actively looking for work, are
also low.
We are facing both the challenge and the opportunity of a
tight labor market. Employers are challenged to find the
workers they need, and those who want to work enjoy the
opportunity to find good jobs.
The U.S. labor force grew significantly over the past half
century. Between 1948 and 2005, the labor force increased from
60.6 million to 149.3 million, a 146 percent increase that saw
88.7 million new workers absorbed into the economy.
The 1.1 percent average annual labor force growth rate of
the 1950's increased in the 1960's to 1.7 percent, then to 2.7
percent per year labor force growth in the 1970's.
This remarkable increase in the annual rate of labor force
growth in the 1970's reflected two major components: native
population growth, as the baby boom generation--my generation--
matured and entered the labor force, and also increased labor
force participation by women.
The annual average labor force growth rate then began
slowing in the 1980's to 1.7 percent per year as population
growth slowed, but still maintained a fairly high rate of
growth, at 1.7 percent, because the labor force participation
of women was still continuing to rise.
Since 1995, labor force growth has averaged even lower, 1.2
percent, and BLS projections for 2006 through 2014 forecast
continuing declines in the rate of labor force growth, 1.1
percent in 2006, down to 0.8 percent in 2014.
Slower labor force growth means a tighter labor market,
fewer new workers to fill new jobs and vacancies. This will be
a good labor market for job seekers and a challenge for
employers seeking to fill new job openings and to fill
vacancies as baby boomers retire.
I might mention, in the latest data on job openings from
the BLS Job Opening Survey, at the end of April, there were 4.1
million unfilled vacancies in the United States.
The increase in the labor force participation of women over
the past half century is a particularly noteworthy fact. If the
female labor force participation rate had remained at the 1948
level over the past half century, the labor force today would
be 31 million less than it actually is.
It is a sign of the strength, I think, of our economy that
we absorbed the influx of 31 million new workers with relative
ease. Indeed, I think we are stronger and more productive
because of increased labor force participation of women.
Immigrants are also a significant and growing component of
the U.S. labor force. In 2005, the 22 million foreign-born
workers comprised 14.8 percent of the U.S. labor force.
The demographic characteristics of the foreign-born labor
force differ in many respects from the native born: they are
more likely to be men, they are younger, they are more likely
to be Hispanic or Asian, and they are less educated, on
average, than the native-born labor force.
The foreign-born labor force has increased by 1.8 million
since 2002. Foreign-born workers accounted for almost 40
percent of the 4.5 million increase in the labor force from
2000 to 2005.
The projected 1 percent labor force growth over the next 10
years will be below the average labor force growth of the
1950's, and well below the 2.7 percent average annual labor
force growth of the 1970's, even including this large component
of projected foreign-born workers in that total.
At 40 percent almost of labor force growth since 2002,
immigrants certainly comprise an important component of overall
labor force growth, and of our capacity to maintain growing
national output.
I hope this is helpful, and I would be happy to answer your
questions.
Chairman Specter. Thank you very much, Mr. Bird.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bird appears as a submission
for the record.]
Chairman Specter. Our next witness is State Representative
Art Hershey. He represents Chester County. He was first elected
to the House of Representatives in 1982, and is Chairman of the
Pennsylvania House Agriculture and Rural Affairs Committee.
He has hands-on experience in dairy operation in
Cockerville, Pennsylvania. He has an extensive educational
background from Penn State.
Thank you very much for being with us today,Representative
Hershey. The floor is yours.
STATEMENT OF HON. ARTHUR HERSHEY, PENNSYLVANIA HOUSE OF
REPRESENTATIVES, 13th LEGISLATIVE DISTRICT, CHESTER COUNTY,
PENNSYLVANIA
Representative Hershey. Chairman Specter, Senator Kennedy,
thank you for this opportunity to testify.
Would you all please step forward while we thank our My
name is Art Hershey and I represent historic Chester County in
the Pennsylvania House of Representatives. I am also the
Chairman of our House Agricultural and Rural Affairs Committee.
Labor-intense agriculture and value-added industries, like
food processing, are very important to Pennsylvania. Growing
industries, like mushrooms, fruit, vegetables, nursery and
greenhouse, and dairy require large work forces. In fact,
Pennsylvania ranks tenth in the Nation in the size of our hired
farm worker payroll.
Our specialty, agriculture, is much more reliant on labor
than the national average. In the end, we are talking about
more than just the jobs of farm workers. These industries
create thousands of good-paying jobs for Pennsylvanians that
would cease to exist if we did not have labor on our farms.
I am talking about jobs providing inputs and supplies,
equipment, marketing, packaging, processing, transportation,
lending and insurance. Economists tell us there are three to
four such jobs created for every single farm worker.
As Agriculture Committee Chairman, I know and care about
all these industries in the Commonwealth. My own background is
in the dairy industry. Even highly mechanized dairies have a
significant need for labor and rely heavily on the immigrant
labor force. We need workers year-round. Dairy falls through
the cracks of all the existing programs which are for seasonal
workers only, or for non-agricultural workers.
Who makes up our farm labor force? In 2002, Pennsylvania
farmers employed 67,672 hired laborers; 26,066 were employed
150 days or longer, with the rest in more seasonal jobs.
In 1998, a Department of Labor survey showed that 52
percent of farm workers self-admitted they lacked work
authorization. In a regional northeast breakout including
Pennsylvania, 65 percent admitted they lacked work
authorization.
Also, in 1998, an astounding 99 percent of new entrants
into the farm labor force lacked proper status. This clearly
shows we lack domestic labor seeking work on our farms.
Private estimates suggest that the overall percentage of
farm workers who lack immigration status is approaching 75
percent. It is crucial that we solve the agricultural labor
crisis calmly and wisely.
The average farm worker wage in Pennsylvania last year was
$9.76 per hour. This is not a problem of minimum wage work.
Without immigrant workers, we would not have a labor force. It
is that simple.
The industry I really want to talk about today is the
mushroom industry. Seventy percent of our Nation's commercial
mushroom farms are in Chester County, in my District. More than
500 million pounds are grown in the Stat, 60 percent of all
mushrooms grown in the U.S. Every single one is picked by hand.
The crop has an annual value of more than 400 million. They
are estimated to be over 5,000 mushroom farm workers in
Pennsylvania, most are year-round. The mushroom industry, and
in fact all the Pennsylvania agricultural industries I have
mentioned here today, need three things out of immigration
reform.
For the long term, they need a guest worker program that
allows for seasonal and year-round workers. In the near term,
they need a transition that allows industry to retain its
trained and experienced work force.
Finally, employers need to be assured that the
responsibility of the ultimate verification of a worker's legal
status lies with the Federal Government, not with the
employers, and certainly not with the State government, as some
of my well-meaning colleagues in Harrisburg have recently
proposed.
Chairman Specter, the bill that you guided to passage in
the Senate contains these essential provisions. First, the S.
2611 overhauls the H2A program. While it does extend it to
year-round dairy workers, it is a very important provision for
Pennsylvania.
It does not extend to year-round mushroom or nursery
workers. We would prefer that it does. However, we believe that
these, and other, industries could use the new H2C program for
positions that do not qualify for H2A.
On the issue of transition, the bill provides for earned
legalization for qualifying farm workers willing to pay a fine
and meet tough conditions. This is not automatic citizenship,
which some call amnesty. Adjustment of status is crucial to the
mushroom industry, not to mention other Pennsylvania
agriculture sectors.
Some say that we tried legalization for agriculture in
1986, and they say it failed. The failure of the Reagan-era
legislation was not the legalization program. Many of the
mushroom workers who legalized are now the owners, operators,
and managers of our mushroom farms and many other business
today.
Rather, the failure of IRCA was the lack of a long- term
solution for our farm labor needs. This time, Chairman Specter,
the Senate bill does it right. The Agriculture Jobs provision
of the bill addresses both the long term and the need for
transition.
In closing, I know Pennsylvania agriculture will lose if
Congress fails to enact the right reforms in the right way. I
urge Pennsylvania's delegation in the U.S. House of
Representatives to tone down their rhetoric and come to the
negotiating table and produce a final bill that contains these
critical reforms. Time is, indeed, of essence.
Thank you for allowing me to speak.
Chairman Specter. Thank you very much, Representative
Hershey.
[The prepared statement of Representative Hershey appears
as a submission for the record.]
Chairman Specter. We now turn to Ms. Carol Rossi, Corporate
Director of Human Resources for Harristown Development
Corporation, the parent company of The Harrisburg Hotel
Corporation.
She has been in the hospitality industry in Pennsylvania
since 1991. She has a Bachelor's from Florida State, and has
more than 575 employees in six locations under her direction.
We appreciate your being with us, Ms. Rossi, and we look
forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF CAROL ROSSI, CORPORATE DIRECTOR OF HUMAN
RESOURCES, THE HARRISBURG HOTEL CORPORATION, HARRISBURG,
PENNSYLVANIA
Ms. Rossi. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Senator
Kennedy. Thank you for the opportunity to appear here today.
My name is Carol Rossi. I am the Corporate Director of
Human Resources for Harrisburg Hotel Corporation in Harrisburg,
Pennsylvania, and I am testifying on behalf of the Pennsylvania
Tourism and Lodging Association, and the Pennsylvania
Restaurant Association. Both are State- wide associations that
represent lodging and restaurants in the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania.
I am responsible for all aspects of human resource
functions for my company's four locations, which include a
Four-Diamond Hilton in downtown Harrisburg, the Hilton Garden
Inn in Hershey, Pennsylvania, a brand-new restaurant in
downtown Harrisburg with 160 seats, and Central Penn Business
School's Conference Center and student restaurant.
The majority of my staff's time in human resources, their
efforts, and most of our budget, is spent directly on the
recruitment and hiring process to fill approximately 45 job
postings for our various operations on a weekly basis.
Our largest operation, the Hilton Harrisburg, currently has
320 employees and has an average of 25 of those 40 openings on
its list. This week, as of June 30, we had 36 openings to fill.
The result of that is, when an employee comes to work, they
know that they are going to be under-staffed by 10 to 12
percent, on average, and it is incredibly frustrating for both
them and for us as the employer.
For both of us, it means a lot more work, longer hours,
increased workplace injuries, increased guest complaints, and
the list goes on. Overtime may be the only welcome benefit that
that employee may receive, although they would much prefer a
40-hour work week, more time with their family, and a more
predictable workload.
To respond to these demands, we are constantly in the
recruitment mode. We attend an average of 25 job fairs
annually, many of which we host ourselves. We spend, at the
Hilton Harrisburg alone, over $8,000 a year in classified
newspaper ads and recruitment sources to fill most of our
openings.
On many of our recruitment trips, we go to colleges,
universities, trade schools, and agencies throughout the course
of a year, but a lot of those dollars that we spend do not give
us the desired results.
Recently, as an example, we hosted a job fair this January
to staff our new restaurant that we opened in downtown
Harrisburg. We had attractive and costly ads that we placed in
the local Harrisburg Patriot News to draw in many candidates.
But, disappointingly, we only saw 20 candidates show up to that
job fair, 3 of which were qualified to fill the 45 openings at
our new restaurant.
Immigrants are fundamental to the success of both the hotel
and restaurant industries: 1.6 million restaurant workers are
immigrants; one-quarter of food service managers in 2003 were
foreign-born, making our industry an industry of opportunity,
and one that employs one of the most diverse cross-sections of
people from different cultures and backgrounds.
We have utilized organizations, such as the CETUSA and CIEE
to assist us in bringing in seasonal workers to fill our
numerous openings. Although it is only a short-term fix, it
allows us the ability to continue to search for more permanent
solutions in the meanwhile. We have hired foreigners with J1
visas; the H2B category has been avoided due to complications,
cost, and the restrictive numbers that are allowed.
The process for that H2B worker is very complex. A company
must engage in extensive recruiting of possible U.S. workers,
be unable to identify an adequate number of U.S. citizens to do
the work, obtain certification from the Department of Labor
that we have attempted to recruit American workers without
success, then obtain certification from the U.S. Department of
Labor of the need for workers, then receive approval from the
U.S. Department of Homeland Security to identify qualified
foreign workers to obtain the approval for the H2B visa from
the U.S. State Department. As you can see, that is incredibly
complex, lengthy, costly, and very frustrating.
What is apparent, is we cannot fill our positions with the
work force that currently exists. Jobs are growing in the
hospitality industry and the work force is shrinking. Add to
that our declining birth rates in the United States and it
becomes apparent that the math just does not work to allow us
to move successfully into the future.
Additionally, our work force is an aging one. Many of these
jobs are very labor-intensive and physically demanding. Many of
these jobs are not attractive to American workers.
As an employer, one of the most absolutely critical tasks
we handle on a regular basis is verification of identification
for all new hires to prove eligibility to work legally in the
United States.
On numerous occasions we have had to discharge an employee
after completing the entire employment process because of their
inability to provide valid ID when they arrived for
orientation.
While this is incredibly frustrating, as we have just
finished spending numerous hours and dollars to get the person
to this point in the process, we still follow the law to a
fault: the employee is terminated and the dollars and time we
merely write off to costs of doing business.
We are hopeful that an improved system will be put into
place to effectively assist us with this task. We support and
understand severe penalties against those who knowingly hire
undocumented workers, and also support a safe harbor for good-
faith errors, particularly if we are relying on an error-ridden
government-provided verification system.
In regards to wages and benefits of our employees,
regardless of their classification or nationality, they are
hired at the pay rates linked to a particular position, so a
housekeeper would receive the same amount of pay whether they
are a U.S. citizen or whether they are a foreigner legally
allowed to work here.
That upholds the same for the benefits that we provide to
our employees. We have a very attractive benefit policy and it
is very affordable for our employees and it is very competitive
with the manufacturing and retail lines, as well as within the
hospitality industry.
Our company's goal is to employ workers that are committed
to serving people. The hospitality business is an admirable
business, and because our company holds a strong belief in
professionalism in our industry we are focused on encouraging
our management to achieve those certifications. Currently, 35
of our employees have their professional certifications from
the Educational Institute of the Hotel and Lodging Association.
While many people come to us without advanced education, EI
allows us to help them grow during their employment and advance
in their specific fields with the hospitality business.
Many of our foreign workers have taken advantage of this
training and it gives them the confidence to succeed and to
continue to grow their careers, while advancing their knowledge
base and job skills.
Chairman Specter. How much more time will you need, Ms.
Rossi?
Ms. Rossi. Just one moment.
In conclusion--thank you, Mr. Chairman--to succeed, our
economy desperately needs workers at both ends of the spectrum,
young and less-skilled as well as more educated and highly
skilled. Without the flow of immigrant labor, our work force
will fall short.
Thank you very much for this opportunity.
Chairman Specter. Thank you very much, Ms. Rossi.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Rossi appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Specter. Our next witness is Mr. Dan Eichenlaub,
who has a large, full-scale landscape contracting service in
western Pennsylvania, and has been there since 1974. He has an
Engineering degree from Penn State and an Entrepreneurial
Leadership certificate from the Temper School of Business at
Carnegie-Mellon.
Thank you for traveling to Philadelphia today, Mr.
Eichenlaub. We look forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF DAN EICHENLAUB, PRESIDENT, EICHENLAUB, INC.,
PITTSBURGH, PENNSYLVANIA
Mr. Eichenlaub. It is always a joy to come across the
State, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Specter. Thank you.
Mr. Eichenlaub. Also, Senator Kennedy, I am glad to be here
today and to speak to all those in attendance.
Again, my name is Dan Eichenlaub, and my brothers and I
started Eichenlaub, Incorporated, a landscape contracting
company based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania back in 1974, and a
business that we have tried to grow ever since.
I am part of a Pennsylvania green industry that includes
landscape contractors, nurseries, and garden centers that
represent the fastest-growing segment of Pennsylvania
agriculture, and has about a $5.6 billion impact on the
Commonwealth's economy. Nationally, this industry has about a
$150 billion impact for the country.
My association, the Pennsylvania Landscape and Nursery
Association, and our Federal partner, the American Nursery and
Landscape Association, have worked hard to find comprehensive
solutions to our Nation's immigration crisis. This crisis
includes problems with the H2B visas/seasonal guest worker
labor program.
For 5 years, I have been using the H2B visa program to
obtain guest workers for positions with my company for which I
have been unable to find local workers. The H2B program was
designated for seasonal industries.
Remember, not just my company and my industry participate
in the H2B program. Minor league baseball players and hockey
players come here on H2B visas. So do seafood workers in
Maryland and Virginia, salmon processors in Alaska, shrimp and
crawfishers in the Gulf.
Resorts, from Hilton Head and Myrtle Beach, South Carolina
to Nantucket, Cape Cod, Branson, Mackinaw Island, and our ski
communities, from Vermont to California, all have to turn to
the H2B program to stay in operation.
America's most beautiful treasures, including the Grand
Canyon, Sequoia, and Yosemite National Parks need H2B workers
in order to serve visitors from the U.S. and around the world.
Stone quarries from New Hampshire to Utah rely on the H2B visa
workers as well, and H2B visa workers save lives along our
coasts every day, and put out forest fires.
The program represents a critical component in the success
of my company and provides workers that I cannot find in my
region of the State. I can tell you without hesitation that
there are not enough native-born available American workers to
fully staff and grow my business.
This is hot, physically demanding seasonal work. Entry-
level agriculture and manual jobs are, quite frankly, not the
ambition of most young Americans.
If you are unconvinced from myself and my colleagues,
witness the requirements of the H2B visa program: I must
advertise in the Pittsburgh papers to attempt to fill an open
position with an American worker.
If I cannot find an American worker to do the job, I can
apply for an H2B visa, at a substantial expense, and with the
direction of four separate government agencies. The H2B program
requires me to pay a federally mandated rate that is higher
than the minimum wage to both my American and my seasonal guest
workers.
These workers must go home every year, and I must go
through this process again each year as proof that an American
worker has not become available for my positions.
Due to program limitations, especially the artificial cap
on allowable visas, I risk investing time and money in finding
a guest worker who may not obtain authorization to return the
next season. If the cap is left artificially low, a black
market of unauthorized workers is unintentionally encouraged.
Even with these limitations, the H2B program at least
presents an opportunity, maybe the only opportunity for
thousands of communities with seasonal employment needs, to
obtain an adequate work force. An adequate work force allows me
to create and maintain year-round jobs for Pennsylvanians in
landscape design, sales, and management.
My Jamaican H2B workers--and I like to point out Jamaican,
because I think immigration in my industry is way beyond the
Latinos and Hispanics--do excellent work: they are motivated,
they are more than physically competent, and they have a strong
work ethic.
Many of my H2B workers have been coming back for several
years. These workers are like family to me and my colleagues.
They like the program, which allows them to earn a good living
and spend their winters with their families back in their
homeland. We like the program, which ensures a dedicated,
satisfied work force year after year.
However, the program is flawed. It is capped at 66,000
workers per year. Two years ago, the cap hit before my workers'
paperwork had been fully processed. That season, I lost my
workers and I lost a half a million dollars in potential
business revenue as a result.
In 2005, Congress passed the Save Our Small and Seasonal
Business Act legislation that greatly extended the program by
exempting many returning workers from the cap. However, this
was simply a 1-year program extension. The return worker
exemption should be made permanent and the cap should be
altered to allow the program to realistically expand based on
the needs of the American economy.
The Senate has offered some relief. The 3-year extension of
the Returning Worker Exemption is a crucial part of this
comprehensive immigration reform bill that you passed in May.
The Senate also provided needed solutions and reforms to
the landscape and nursery industry, including time- tested and
bipartisan provisions for agriculture and the H2A program.
As we heard earlier from Representative Hershey,
agriculture is the largest industry in Pennsylvania. Our
nurseries, our farms, and our agri-businesses need staffing
solutions. We need to keep our workers and we need to fix the
broken visa programs, thus matching willing documented workers
with willing employers.
Those of us who use and understand these programs know that
they create needed legal channels for temporary workers to
enter the U.S. safely and legally.
Chairman Specter. Mr. Eichenlaub, how much more time do you
need?
Mr. Eichenlaub. About one more second.
They contribute to our economy and return home at the
proper time. We all support secure borders. It is ludicrous to
think that we can secure our borders without creating workable
legal channels like H2B and the proposed new H2C program.
On behalf of the landscape and nursery industry, and of
many small businesses across our country, I call upon the House
to come to the table to work with the Senate to pass
comprehensive immigration reform and fix the H2B program and
help grow our small and seasonal businesses.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Specter. Thank you, Mr. Eichenlaub.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Eichenlaub appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Specter. Our next witness is Reverend Louis
Cortes, Jr., President and CEO of Esperanza USA, the largest
Hispanic faith-based community development corporation in the
country. He served as Vice Chair of the Federal Home Loan Bank
Board of Pittsburgh, and in January of 2005, was featured as
one of Time Magazine's 25 most influential evangelicals.
He has a Master's degree in divinity from the Union
Theological Seminary and a Master of Science in Economic
Development from New Hampshire College.
We appreciate your being here, Reverend Cortes. The floor
is yours.
STATEMENT OF REVEREND LUIS CORTES, JR., PRESIDENT AND CEO,
ESPERANZA USA, PHILADELPHIA, PENNSYLVANIA
Reverend Cortes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Senator Kennedy.
Immigration is the number-one issue of concern to 40
million Hispanic American citizens in this country. For us,
immigration is about family: grandparents, parents, uncles,
sisters, and brothers who have undocumented status. It is about
family values, about work, and living productive lives as
contributing members of our community.
Mr. Chairman, you asked I address concerns about State and
local law enforcement having authorities and responsibilities
to enforce Federal immigration law.
Enforcement of Federal immigration statutes must remain a
Federal responsibility. It is especially critical that
emergency 911 first responders have no enforcement or reporting
responsibilities whatsoever.
Giving State and local law enforcement authorities even
partial reporting responsibilities for Federal immigration law
enforcement would, quite simply, endanger the health and safety
of Hispanic and non-Hispanic ommunities and would reverse and
disintegrate years of progress in community programs, and
transform what is today a close, cooperative, and productive
relationship between clergy and State and local law enforcement
into an adversarial one.
There is some good news. Today, clergy--not just Hispanic
clergy, but all clergy--work with State and local law
enforcement. We are often the first to be called when youth get
into trouble. Truancies, runaways, and even gang violence are
areas where we partner with police. We partner in matters of
domestic violence, drug interdiction and enforcement, and
police-community relations.
Today, communities are safer, healthier places thanks to
years of close collaboration between local law enforcement and
clergy. Our charter high school, Nueva Esperanza Academy,
participates in the Safe Street Corridors program, where a
police squad, working with parent volunteers, create safe
passage for children to go to and from school.
Hundreds of programs like these depend on relationships of
trust between State and local law enforcement and the faith
community. To deputize local police is to break the trust that
we have worked so hard to build.
There is, Mr. Chairman, a dark side to this immigration
reform. Over 50 million people can no longer call the police to
defend and protect them. That is the 12 million undocumented,
the 3 million American citizen children of those undocumented,
and their 30 to 40 million citizen family members. We would
create a second class, with no access to protection, one that
is constantly at risk and vulnerable to the most heinous
individuals.
Lifelong criminals would now have easy prey. Violent
criminals would have more rights than hardworking members of
communities whose only infraction was the misdemeanor offense
of entering our country looking for work, or citizens who can
no longer count on local police protection because of an
undocumented family member.
Take the Safe Corridors program I just mentioned our
charter school participates in. Does the same police officer
who, today is creating safe passage, now pick up a citizen
child to capture the undocumented parent?
Would religious and public after-school programs become
sites where police could find undocumented parents as they pick
up their children? Hundreds of programs like these would have
to shut down.
A separate, but very real, issue for clergy is how to
handle police officers who attend our churches. Would we need
to create churches solely for our officers? By far the darkest
of all new realities would be the many ways criminals would
take advantage of law enforcement's role in immigration
enforcement to enhance their criminal enterprises.
All undocumented immigrants instantly become targets.
Hardworking American citizens who have an undocumented family
member in the home becomes susceptible to the blackmailer,
making them into victims of crime, or even recruiting them for
criminal activity.
Undocumented mothers or their daughters become instant
targets for unreported rape and abuse. The rapist will
mockingly hand over the phone and dare them to call 911.
Unscrupulous police officers will use their new authority to
their advantage, forcing the undocumented to bend to their
will.
Racial profiling will become standard. Will those of
Hispanic descent have to constantly prove our citizenship while
others do not? Will I have to have proof of my citizenship even
when I sit in my own home? Many will say this will not happen
here, but this has happened before, which is why our clergy and
I fear this as a very real problem.
During World War II, neighbors turned in their Japanese-
American neighbors. Even though we were at war with Japan,
today we acknowledge the injustice of the internment camps and
of racially profiling all of a particular ethnic descent.
In the 1930's, tens of thousands--possibly more than
400,000--Mexican and Mexican-American citizens were forced to
leave our country. Many of those citizens were children who
were extradited without due process.
These issues are not limited to Hispanic communities, but
would be replicated in Russian-Jewish communities, African-
Ethiopian, Asian, and Irish immigrant communities as well.
In closing, Mr. Chairman and Senator Kennedy, I am afraid
of the tenor of this immigration dialog, especially by those in
our House of Representatives. House Resolution 4437 will make
me and thousands of clergy in this country felons for feeding
the hungry and taking care of the stranger.
Old and New Testament mandates clergy of many faiths to
perform this, regardless of your colleagues' law- making. I
have heard members of the House of Representatives say,
``Choking off the jobs of illegals will cause them to starve
and force them to leave our country.''
I stand with hundreds of thousands of my ministerial
colleagues who will go to jail if necessary rather than to
starve 12 million people and their 3 million American citizen
children. Members of Congress should be ashamed of speaking in
that manner.
Fortunately, I know there are millions of Americans that
will not tolerate the starving of innocent children or of
undocumented people in our country. I know this is not the
America you have worked so hard to build and protect. I urge
you to share with your colleagues in the House and in the
Senate the very real dangers contained in the policies that are
now being debated.
I thank you again for this opportunity, Senator Specter and
Senator Kennedy.
Chairman Specter. Thank you very much, Reverend Cortes.
[The prepared statement of Reverend Cortes appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Specter. We now turn to Ms. Eileen Connelly, who
is the Executive Director of the State Council of Service
Employees International Union in Pennsylvania.
Ms. Connelly began her career as a medical lab technician
in Hazelton St. Joseph Hospital. In the interim, since 1984,
she has negotiated many hospital contracts and many of the
nursing home contracts.
We appreciate your being here, Ms. Connelly, and we look
forward to your testimony.
STATEMENT OF EILEEN CONNELLY, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, SEIU
PENNSYLVANIA STATE COUNCIL, HARRISBURG, PENNSYLVANIA
Ms. Connelly. Thank you, Senator Specter and Senator
Kennedy.
SEIU is the largest and fastest-growing union in North
America. We currently represent about 1.8 million workers
nationally, and we have 60,000 here in Pennsylvania that we
represent, mainly in health care, in property services, and in
public service employment of State, county, and municipal
workers.
We also represent, among them, thousands of immigrants,
working as janitors, nursing home assistants, and home health
care aides.
SEIU supports comprehensive immigration reform. We believe
that the problem is not immigration, but rather a broken
immigration system that fails to provide orderly legal channels
to come to work in this country within the industries that need
workers the most.
It fuels an underground economy where workers have little
protection and are forced to work for bad pay and in hazardous
conditions, which undermines the standards of all workers.
Our union is working in Pennsylvania, and around the
country, to get Congress to pass a ``Break the Mold'' solution
that includes tough, effective work site enforcement, a
realistic program to bring undocumented immigrants out of the
shadows and into the legal work force, and a new worker program
that channels future immigrants through a controlled, orderly
process.
Without comprehensive immigration reform, critical
industries in our country, like long-term nursing care and
janitorial services, face critical worker shortages. It is
estimated that 5 million direct-care workers will be needed by
the year 2030 to take care of people, and we do not have enough
native-born workers to fill our needs.
Some employers use undocumented immigrant status as a
weapon against them, threatening deportation when workers seek
to join unions or if they complain about illegal working
conditions.
The bottom line is, exploitation of undocumented immigrants
drives down wages for all working Americans, and the only
solution is for Congress to pass real, comprehensive reform.
First, put simply, an enforcement-only approach will not
work. We know that employers have substantial demand for
immigrant labor. If we do not create legal channels for workers
to come to this country, they will continue to come illegally.
The heart of real immigration reform must be a combination
of tough work site enforcement and ample legal flows so that
employers have enough workers, and all workers have workplace
protections, regardless of their immigration status.
Second, work site enforcement of immigration rules will
never succeed as long as millions of existing workers lack
legal status, and real reform must move these workers out of
the shadows and into the formal economy.
If employers start with millions of undocumented workers
already on their payrolls, it is unrealistic to think we can
create an effective employer-sanctioned regime.
Third, it is essential that future legal immigrants enjoy
the full protection of our labor laws and that any new
temporary worker program include strong protections so that
temporary workers do not undermine U.S. wages.
Our experience with flawed temporary worker programs offer
important lessons for a new worker program to avoid driving
down U.S. wages. A new temporary worker program must have
strong prevailing wage protections, must regulate the role of
foreign labor contractors, must give immigrants the right to
join U.S. unions and protect workers during union organizing
campaigns.
Every effort must be made to recruit U.S. workers, first.
Workers must have portability. They must be able to vote with
their feet by changing jobs to avoid employer exploitation and
ensure that wages are competitive.
All workers must be able to participate in their
neighborhoods, their cities, and communities, which means they
must have a path to citizenship. All these protections must be
backed by vigorous work site enforcement by State and Federal
Department of Labor and other enforcement agents, not by the
Department of Homeland Security.
The Senate-passed bill is a good start, but we believe
needs improvement both on labor protections and the Title II
criminalization and due process provisions, which continue to
be very troubling. We continue to hope the bipartisan work
demonstrated by the Senate will carry over to the U.S. House of
Representatives.
My union knows first-hand the value that immigrants provide
to our economy and our union. Hundreds of thousands of our
members are immigrants. Unfortunately, too many are
undocumented, but they are hard-working and paying taxes, and
have lived in the United States for many years. That is why I
am here representing them, and representing SEIU.
SEIU continues supporting comprehensive immigration reform,
securing our borders both north and south, treating
undocumented immigrants firmly, but fairly, by requiring them
to undergo background checks, pay a fine, and learn English in
exchange for getting on a path to citizenship, and addressing
the need in our economy for future workers who have full
protection of labor law and enforcement.
Thank you for giving me this opportunity to testify today.
Chairman Specter. Thank you very much, Ms. Connelly.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Connelly appears as a
submission for the record.]
Chairman Specter. We will now proceed to questioning by
Senator Kennedy myself. In light of the fact that we have six
witnesses, we are going to each have a 10-minute round.
Ms. Connelly, picking up on your testimony, and in line
with what Mr. Eichenlaub said about the way of assure that
Americans are not available for jobs before immigrants are
hired, and looking to avoid an underground economy, which you
have testified about, Mr. Bird, of the Department of Labor, has
noted that there are 4.1 million jobs which need people at the
present time, trying to address the issue of not having others
take jobs where Americans can fill them or depressing wages.
What do you think about the adequacy of the provisions of
the Senate bill which would require that there be an effort to
find U.S. people to fill a job before an immigrant is hired,
and the provisions of the amendment offered by Senator Obama
from Illinois to have Davis-Bacon as the prevailing wage to
make sure that we maintain current standards?
Ms. Connelly. I think it is all right to try to hire
native-born, American-born people first for jobs. I think that
part of what happens, is that those conditions are put on
employers and they have to go too far, then jobs are not
filled. We know, and it has been testified today, that there
are enough American-born folks to fill the jobs that need to be
filled.
Chairman Specter. Well, are you concerned that there will
be jobs taken by immigrants which could be filled by Americans?
Ms. Connelly. Not in the industries that SEIU represents.
That has not been a concern.
Chairman Specter. I talked to a couple of members of the
building trades, construction workers, and there is concern
there.
Ms. Connelly. Yes.
Chairman Specter. What we are trying to do, is regulate the
influx. Right now, there are complaints that immigrants are
taking jobs which American could fulfill. What we are trying to
structure is a system where, if the jobs could be filled by
Americans, they will be.
But where you hear the testimony from Representative
Hershey about farm workers, or you hear Ms. Rossi, about
hospitality and hotel workers, or Mr. Eichenlaub about
landscapers, we have a shortage.
Mr. Bird, from the overall point of view of the Department
of Labor, what would the impact be on our economy if we did not
have many jobs held by undocumented immigrants and if we did
not have a guest worker program?
Mr. Bird. Well, first of all, Senator, we cannot really
address the question of undocumented versus documented. The
data that is available tells us who is foreign-born, who is a
naturalized citizen, versus a non- citizen resident. But other
than that, the data that is available does not speak to the
documentation status.
Chairman Specter. If you have native-born, you know they
are citizens.
Mr. Bird. Right.
Chairman Specter. Wait for the question. If you have
foreign-born, does the evidentiary base, the statistical base
give us any substantial basis for estimating the number of
undocumented immigrants?
Mr. Bird. I have seen estimates that have been made by
others based on a pyramid of assumptions. The fundamental data
that I see, such as the Current Population Survey data, and so
forth, merely asks where you were born.
Chairman Specter. Can you give us a professional judgment
as to what the status of the economy would be if you did not
have immigrants in the work force?
Mr. Bird. I think, if we did not have immigrants, if we did
not have foreign-born workers in the work force, we would have
a big hole in our economy. They amount to 14 percent of the
labor force, and that would be a hard hole to fill.
Chairman Specter. Representative Hershey, what will the
impact be on the foreign population, based upon your experience
as Chairman of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives Farm
and Rural Area Committee?
Representative Hershey. If they could not get foreign
workers?
Chairman Specter. If you could not get immigrant workers.
Representative Hershey. Some of the operations would
collapse, literally collapse. We advertise in the paper for
workers, and local people used to come around the farm when we
look for help, but now they do not. So, it went to the
immigrant labor. They are very good workers, and if we could
not have them, the large operations would collapse.
Chairman Specter. Ms. Rossi, how about in your field, in
the hospitality line, hotels, restaurants?
Ms. Rossi. I would estimate that 15 to 20 percent of our
work force are foreign workers, so it would have a deadly
impact on us. I think that is what gives us, restaurants and
hotels, the character of who we are and what we are. You walk
down any street and see all the different types of restaurants,
it is very much infiltrated with foreign workers.
Chairman Specter. How about the landscapers, Mr.
Eichenlaub?
Mr. Eichenlaub. Well, I wholly support it. I do not we have
a problem with running the ads that I do every year to make
sure there are no American workers available.
I think the challenge that we run up against, just like I
did when I could not get American workers and I started through
the process to get foreign workers, I spent a ton of money and
a lot of time, only to miss the deadline and not get the visas.
So, I put the effort in and I did not get them.
But my company specifically would be tremendously hurt. As
you heard 2 years ago, when I did not get my guest workers, it
cost me about a half a million dollars in revenue that I could
not earn because I did not have the work force to do it.
Chairman Specter. Mr. Eichenlaub, you say there is $5.6
billion in the Pennsylvania economy. You say, nationally, there
is $150 billion in landscaping.
Mr. Bird, this may be an unanswerable question, but
occasionally we ask questions like that.
[Laughter.]
Could you project what the figure would be nationally if
you did not have an immigrant work force if you have $4.5
billion from landscapers alone?
Mr. Bird. I could look at that and get something back to
you, perhaps.
Chairman Specter. All right. That would be fine, if you
would take a look at it.
Mr. Bird. Rather than try to make calculations here.
Chairman Specter. And report back?
Mr. Bird. I would be happy to do that, sir.
[The information appears as a submission for the record.]
Chairman Specter. Reverend Cortes, in your testimony you
expressed concerns regarding the alien smuggling provisions of
the House bill, saying that the term would assist, and the
criminal smuggling penalties would ``instantly transform all
Hispanic clergy and many non- Hispanic clergy from community
leaders to Federal criminals.''
You also testified today that you are prepared to go to
jail.
Reverend Cortes. Yes, sir.
Chairman Specter. Well, we do not want that to happen. How
much assistance is given on a humanitarian basis by the clergy
to immigrants, would you say? Could you quantify?
Reverend Cortes. I can answer this way. Most of the
undocumented in the Latino community that come to this country
end up in our churches, whether they be Catholic or Protestant.
So while we do not do a head count, we know, of the 8 million
Hispanic undocumented, a significant portion of them are in our
congregations. We feed people, we work with people, we counsel
people.
The way that legislation is written, anyone who aids and
abets a person who is undocumented, it would create a felony if
4437 would continue, which would make it what we call the
Clergy Criminalization Act, because in essence, all clergy, not
just Hispanic ministers, but anyone who works with a person who
comes to their congregation, would be guilty of breaking that
particular law, as it is written.
Chairman Specter. Reverend Cortes, if immigration reform
did not deal with the 11 million undocumented immigrants--and I
would be interested in the response from anybody else in the
panel who cares to answer--so that we create an underground
economy, so we create a fugitive class, people who are on the
run who may commit crimes--you do not have to be an immigrant
to commit a crime, that is clear. But we do have that problem,
or the potential for terrorism.
What will we do with the 11 million undocumented
immigrants?
Reverend Cortes. What I heard some of our leaders in the
House say, is that we need to cut them off from jobs, and if
they have no jobs, they cannot have a livelihood. If they have
no livelihood, they cannot eat, and if they cannot eat, they
will go home.
Senator, there is no way people can go home, because many
of the undocumented have no home to go back to. When they speak
this way, they are speaking of starving out 12 million
undocumented.
To me, I have difficulty thinking, or even understanding,
how a Congressperson could say that, understanding that those
12 million undocumented people have 3 million American citizen
children.
So what we would, in essence, do, is create an under class
of people who would be susceptible to criminals and who would
have to figure out how they are going to survive, especially if
they have nowhere to go home to, which is the vast majority of
them.
Chairman Specter. So we would starve out 11 million
undocumented immigrants and we would send to jail the
humanitarian clergy of America.
Reverend Cortes. That is correct, sir.
Chairman Specter. Senator Kennedy?
Senator Kennedy. Thank you, all. It has been a very
worthwhile panel.
I would like to start with Reverend Cortes. Why is this
such a moral issue? We had a good hearing with our earlier
panel, and with this panel here. We have talked about the
problems of enforcement, we have talked about issues on the
temporary worker program, we have talked about the complexity
dealing with the challenges of immigration reform.
Why do you say that this is a moral issue for our country?
I know you are reluctant, perhaps, to speak for others in the
religious community, but if you would, why do they feel so
strongly about the importance of this issue? If they do, why do
they favor a more comprehensive approach?
Reverend Cortes. If you are Jewish, Muslim or Christian,
you believe in the Old Testament, and Christians believe in the
New Testament. The Old Testament, in Leviticus, the 25th
chapter, it talks about how we treat the stranger in our midst.
Senator Kennedy. Matthew chapter twenty-five?
Reverend Cortes. And in Matthew chapter 25, we talk about
the same. For us, a country is judged by how it treats the
least of these. For clergy, regardless of their faith,
humanitarian issues become more important, even than economic
ones.
For people of faith in this country, it is a step backward.
We move away from our democratic underpinnings when we shut
down borders in a manner that is inappropriate. No clergy has a
problem that I know of with protecting the border.
That has never been an issue among clergy. Every nation has
a sovereign right. Even Mexico has troops in its southern
border; it is not discussed much, but they do, to protect their
southern border.
So the issue really is what do we do as a Nation with 12
million people who came here, most of whom came here because we
asked them to directly, or indirectly by economic means.
For the clergy in this country, comprehensive immigration
reform would include a guest worker program and provisions for
the 12 million undocumented people. It would also need for the
House of Representatives and members of the Senate to
understand the word ``amnesty,'' because we are running a
public relations program that has used the word ``amnesty'' in
an incorrect manner.
So for us as clergy, when we see this, we see members of
Congress literally lying about what amnesty and what different
provisions that have come forth from the Senate mean.
So we back the Kennedy-McCain bill, we back the Specter
bill, we backed Hagel-Martinez. For us, the issue was, what do
we do with 12 million undocumented people? Do we become a
Nation that hunts people down and creates a fear element within
it or do we become a Nation that is strong and continues to
foster its heritage?
Senator Kennedy. Well, I wonder, just continuing along that
line, most of us, as you have pointed out, understand that
those who come here, work hard, play by the rules, want to
provide for their families, and are devoted to their religion.
As we mentioned earlier, 76 individuals in the Armed Forces
were naturalized on the Fourth of July in Iraq. More than
70,000 immigrants have served in the Armed Forces.
But let me ask you this. Why is this a family issue? I have
listened to you talk with great eloquence about why this is a
family issue. I think it is important that we have in the
record why we understand that this is both a moral issue and a
family issue, and not just provisions in the legislation.
I think you have spoken about why it is a fairness issue.
We take great pride in this country about valuing family. I am
interested in why you believe that this particular issue is a
family issue.
Reverend Cortes. Of the 12 million undocumented, 8 million
are Hispanic. Those 8 million, just about all of those 8
million, are related to 40 million Americans who happen to also
be Hispanic. It is never discussed, but we have families that
sit at the dinner table where you have three or four different
statuses.
Many of our people come into this country legally, but they
would have to leave after four, six, or eight years because
their paperwork cannot get moved, so they choose to stay with
family. So it is a family values issue. It is about family,
because the vast majority of the folks who are undocumented
are, in fact, family members of American citizens.
Senator Kennedy. I just have a final question for you. I
know you are familiar with Cardinal Mahoney, a Catholic
Cardinal from Los Angeles. He talked about the House
legislation, that not only criminalizes the undocumented but
criminalizes individuals that help the undocumented or
organizations that help the undocumented. Cardinal Mahoney
asked, what am I supposed to tell a mother who is faced with
the choice of remaining here in violation of immigration laws
or staying with her sick child? He said, I would fall under the
provision that criminalizes.
Do you feel, and do members of your community, the
religious community, feel the same way on the criminalization
provisions?
Reverend Cortes. I would answer in two ways. Hispanic
ministers have already stated that they will, in fact, become
civilly disobedient. I also know, I was at a meeting where the
President of the United States was present, where the head of
the Salvation Army said to him that he would march all his
people directly to prison.
Senator Kennedy. I thank you for your response. I only have
a few minutes left.
The one point that is worthwhile to understand, is that the
legislation has real enforcement provisions. Reverend Cortes, I
was there in 1986. That was amnesty. There were no
requirements, there were no penalties, there was no review of
the work record, there was no requirement of learning English.
We had no going to the back of the line.
And when I listened on the floor of the Senate as people
talked about it, those were the circumstances. We never had
adequate enforcement provisions. This is the big and very
important difference, as Senator Specter has pointed out, and
Senator McCain and others have pointed out.
There are very important enforcement provisions. We add the
7,000 Department of Homeland Security investigators. We add
2,000 Department of Labor investigators. Currently, there are
only 60 or 70 investigators in the Labor Department.
Three cases have been brought by the Labor Department in
this last year in terms of the undocumented. So we have what we
believe is a balanced program, and a comprehensive one.
I just have a couple of minutes left, and I want to just
take those 2 minutes to once again thank Senator Specter for
this hearing. We were asked at the press conference before
coming in, do you think you are going to hear anything really
new? Senator Specter and I have been through comprehensive
hearings. The basic structure of the legislation is probably
two and a half, three years old. We have had day after day,
hour after hour mark-ups, and hours of debate. But today we did
learn, or at least I did, and it has been very helpful.
I want to thank Senator Specter for having this hearing,
and I want to thank our panelists. This is a complex issue. It
takes the best judgment, the cooperation, the good common sense
of all Americans to try to get this done. These very important
statements and comments we heard today have been extremely
constructive and helpful, certainly to this Senator.
The best way that we can really demonstrate our
appreciation for your time and effort more importantly to our
country, is to pass real, comprehensive immigration reform that
is going to protect our borders and provide security. It should
also recognize that we have valuable immigrants that have come
here. And under the appropriate circumstances we have
described, it should give them the opportunity to be part of
this American family. We need real enforcement that will
reflect our own humanitarian history and tradition. We need to
do what is right for this country and also demonstrate to the
rest of the world our values by passing a fair, just, and
tough-minded immigration policy.
I thank the Senator.
Chairman Specter. Well, Senator Kennedy, thank you very
much for participating today, and for your leadership. We are
moving ahead on this legislation. We will be having further
hearings during the recess period in August, nationally.
The House of Representatives is having a hearing today in
San Diego, California. There are differences between the House
bill and the Senate bill. Last Thursday, a group of members
from both the Senate and the House met to talk about ways of
coming together.
The President is providing leadership to try to bring the
Houses together. It is our job as legislatures to find
accommodations. We have a bicameral system. We cannot legislate
in the House alone or in the Senate alone, we have to come to
an agreement. But that is our responsibility.
So there is no doubt there is a problem, and our job is to
find the best answer to the problem. We will work at that, and
I believe we can meet that responsibility. That is what we were
elected to do, and we will proceed to do it.
We thank the panel for being here today. Mr. Bird,
Representative Hershey, Ms. Rossi, Mr. Eichenlaub, Reverend
Cortes, and Ms. Connelly, thank you for your testimony. We have
learned more and we will continue to learn more, and we are
open to suggestions.
Ms. Connelly has ideas as to how to improve the Senate
bill. We are open. We are not in concrete. We do not have all
the answers. We come to people in the field who know what the
problems are to help us provide the answers.
We turn to Reverend Cortes for an understanding as to what
the clergy have to say, and what the Hispanic community has to
say. Fundamentally, we are a Nation of immigrants.
When I went through the Constitution Center earlier today,
it is worth mentioning again, and saw Irving Berlin in a World
War I outfit, I thought of my father, who wore the same kind of
an outfit.
My father came to this country in 1911 at the age of 18.
The Czar wanted to send him to Siberia, and as I said before,
he wanted to go to Kansas. It was a close call, but he ended up
in Kansas.
[Laughter.]
My mother came as a child of six with her parents, also
from Ukraine, and settled in the Midwest. I think my brother,
two sisters, and I have contributed to this country. Senator
Kennedy has proud Irish roots. Everybody wearing the tee shirt,
``Legalize the Irish,'' are now permitted to applaud.
[Laughter.]
[Applause.]
Chairman Specter. Senator Kennedy?
Senator Kennedy. Well, just as Senator Specter has told the
story, I can look out of my office window in the JFK Building
in Boston and see the dock, where eight of my great-great
grandparents arrived, got off the boat, and then they walked up
what they called the Golden Stairs in East Boston. Those docks
are still there and those stairs are still there, and it is a
constant reminder.
Chairman Specter. Well, it is nice to have applause from
those wearing the ``Legalize the Irish'' tee shirts. You did
not need the Chairman's permission to applaud. You applauded
during the course of the proceeding. There is a little placard
in every hearing room in Washington, ``If there is any
demonstration, bang the gavel and have the room cleared.''
Well, we did not have that little document here so I could
not remember what to do.
[Laughter.]
But I believe there needs to be some flexibility in
enforcement of the rules for audiences, as well as from
immigrants.
That concludes our hearing.
[Applause.]
[Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m. the hearing was adjourned.]
[Submissions for the record follow.]
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