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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

aelejalderuiz@chicagotribune.com

Twitter @alexiaer

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

In President Trumps fiery address to a raucous crowd of Phoenix supporters, he boldly promised believe me, if we have to close down our government, were building that wall. Earlier in the day, he visited border patrol agents and military in Yuma, Arizona, where expanded border barricades have proven very effective at reducing illegal crossings.

Also on Tuesday, McClatchy News made a splash with a story about the potential for a grand bargain on immigration between the White House and the Hill. According to sources, the administration may concede to moderates on DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals) -- the so-called "Dreamers" brought to the U.S. as children -- in exchange for a funded border wall and tougher immigration policies resembling the RAISE Act, recently outlined by White House aide Stephen Miller in a heated briefing room appearance.

Many on the right revolted, as Breitbart called it Amnesty First and Rosemary Jenks from NumbersUSA, which advocates for restricted immigration, declared: DACA needs to be ended. While I rarely disagree with voices of the populist right, if such a deal is indeed afoot, the president should seize the moment, simultaneously showing his heart while also protecting the long-term safety and economic interests of Americans.

If such a deal is indeed afoot, the president should seize the moment, simultaneously showing his heart while also protecting the long-term safety and economic interests of Americans.

DACAs implementation by executive order under President Obama unconstitutionally usurped Congresss plenary powers under U.S. law. Many states, most notably Texas, plan to sue the federal government over this issue, essentially forcing the White Houses hand. Either the Trump DOJ must fight Texas in court to preserve Obamas king-like edict -- an impossibility -- or a deal must be reached with Congress.

Paradoxically this President, so roundly derided as anti-Mexican and xenophobic, represents the best chance in decades at real, substantive immigration reform and on America First terms.

Regarding the DACA arrivals, the president compassionately maintained their status, recognizing that they were brought as children and had no say in breaking our immigration laws. Many of them have lived in America for decades, speaking English, attending our schools and now earning livings. So long as theyve graduated high school and remain law-abiding, I believe they should be granted legal status, but not citizenship. Why that distinction? Because we cannot allow illegal migrants to become voters nor should we promise this policy is irrevocable, a status full-fledged citizenship would confer.

President Trump, alone, owns the credibility to make this DACA concession for three reasons. First, amazingly, hes already largely secured our border, with illegal crossings plunging due to heightened enforcement and clear-eyed rhetoric. Second, an empowered ICE has accelerated the immediate deportation of thousands of dangerous illegals with criminal records or gang affiliations, foregoing political correctness to protect our citizens, whether legal immigrants or native-born. Third, the Administration already rescinded DACAs nonsensical corollary DAPA, which afforded protection to the illegal guardians of legal immigrants, sheltering grown adults who knowingly and willfully broke our rules.

Most importantly, I implore my colleagues on the populist right to embrace the political reality that this proposed deal can deliver on the most important foundational promises of the Trump movement: both the Border Wall and a far more coherent immigration law as outlined in the Cotton/Perdue RAISE act. Sadly, squishy Republicans who populate the U.S. Senate ensure that no stand-alone wall funding will pass. But, we can and should horse-trade by making DACA the law of the land and, in exchange, secure immediate wall construction PLUS an important shift to a skills-based, more restrained immigration model.

As the son of an immigrant, I urge another son of an immigrant, President Trump, to pursue these badly needed immigration policy reforms and prove his critics wrongyet again.

Steve Cortes is a Fox News contributor, former Trump campaign operative and spokesman for the Hispanic 100. For two decades, he worked on Wall Street as a trader and strategist.

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Trump's Wall and immigration reform Dreamers, deportations and a deal? - Fox News

Donald Trump needs to put some points on the board, and fast. Health-care reform is dying. Every time the White House announces a new Infrastructure Week, Trump gets bored by mid-morning on the first day and goes to Twitter to churn the political-media cesspit.

And so there is now a scramble. Jared Kushner has flown to the Middle East to stand there and take credit in case an improbable peace breaks out. There are new efforts on tax reform. And in the background, Trump aides and other executive-branch employees are talking themselves into an immigration deal, a deal that no one else knows about. At his Arizona rally, he once again promised to build the wall.

But the obstacles the Trump administration faces on immigration are serious ones. At almost every turn, Trumps actions have stiffened opposition to sensible immigration reform. Part of this is just the nature of partisanship. As Republicans became more strongly associated with immigration restriction, Democrats passions started to run in the opposite direction. But a great deal of this is Trumps fault in a direct way.

Trump made immigration his signature issue. He told Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull that he was the worlds greatest person that does not want to let people into the country. And part of the way Trump proved he was the worlds greatest restrictionist to the Ann Coulters and other populists was by again in his own words gladly accept[ing] the mantle of anger.

But while gaining Coulter et al., he justified the fears of others whod always suspected that anyone who really wants to police the borders must be racist or hate Hispanics. Trump accused a federal judge of lacking impartiality on account of his Hispanic heritage alone. He went after the family of a dead American soldier merely on account of their Islamic faith.

Then there was the temporary travel ban. As a policy, it wasnt all that crazy of an idea. It was far short of the once-promised Muslim ban. The vast majority of the worlds Muslims would be unaffected, and the policy came with a swift end date. Furthermore, visas are restricted all the time during periods of war or disruption.

But this executive order was carried out with cruel disregard for people traveling into the United States. And because it was overseen by Steve Bannon, you can be pretty sure that the scenes of chaos, panic, and protest were the intended effect. For a populist of Bannons type, chaos, panic, and protest are proof that youre doing something worthwhile. Bannon thinks that every televised scene of chaos is the 1968 Democratic convention, and that the majority of Americans are rooting for the cops to beat some hippie brains in.

In fact, public opinion overall is running away from Trump on immigration. It looks more and more like Trump sacrificed the issue to his own political benefit. Pew has polled support for a border wall for almost a decade. It held steady in the upper 40s until the Trump campaign began and it fell by almost ten points. Where opposition to Trump is strongest, on the left, the position on immigration is rapidly converging near support for open borders.

It is almost certain that Trump will fall far short of the expectations of his restrictionist fans now. He told you he wasnt serious. He practically mocked his supporters and admitted that the wall was just to get their juices flowing: If it gets a little boring...I just say, We will build the wall! You cant say that you werent told.

When Trump announced that he was going to keep the bipartisan policy of endless half-war in Afghanistan on life support, the serious people said once again that Trump was becoming presidential. Maybe growing into the office. And once again, shortly thereafter he held a crazy rally and engaged in stream-of-consciousness attacks on the media. And the populists said, Our Trump is back. Hes going to build the wall.

How many times will everyone fall for it?

READ MORE: Donald Trump, Protestors, & the Media All Deserve Each Other Stop Illegal Immigration Before Reforming Immigration RAISE Act Immigration Cuts Help Us Regain Legitimacy

Michael Brendan Dougherty is a senior writer at National Review.

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Trump's Dumb Dance on Immigration - National Review