WASHINGTON Immigration rule changes proposed by the U.S. Senate on Thursday could saddle restaurateurs and other employers with tough new requirements for verifying the legal status of new hires, restaurant association officials warn.
The bipartisan bill includes provisions that would require employers to verify electronically that potential new hires are in the country legally. It also seeks to hike penalties for hiring illegal immigrants or failing to keep adequate records.
"We are very concerned that language imposing burdensome new mandates on employers may render the bill unworkable," said Scott Vinson, vice president of government relations for the National Council of Chain Restaurants, a lobbying group based in Washington.
Foodservice association officials have argued that the government's electronic verification program is badly flawed, has only been tested in a pilot program and depends on a database that could contain outdated material.
While association executives said they have not had time to study the bill in detail yet, early summaries and published reports raise other fears as well. For example, it remains unclear whether restaurateurs who use subcontractors for various tasks would be held responsible if the subcontractor was found guilty of hiring undocumented workers.
"There's a lot of potential concern," said John Gay, the National Restaurant Association's senior vice president, government affairs and public policy. "We knew this would be tougher on business than the current law is. But based on what we saw in early drafts, it's worse than expected."
And while the measures includes two provisions favored by the industry - a potential path to citizenship for an estimated 12 million undocumented immigrants already in the United States and a temporary guest worker program - Gay also said he is concerned about the specifics of the latter.
As sketched out in the bill, the program would grant special visas to 400,000 temporary workers each year. The two-year visas would require workers to return to their homes for one year, and then be allowed to re-enter the United States for another two years. That process could be repeated twice.
However, 380,000 of those visas would be awarded on a point system, with 50 percent based on employment criteria, 25 percent based on education, 15 percent on English language proficiency and 10 percent on family connections.
"The point system skews significantly toward highly educated workers, which is not as fair to our workers," Gay said. "But our workers are as valuable to us as a highly skilled worker is to a laboratory."
The measure also would give work authorization to undocumented aliens who arrived in the United States before Jan. 1, 2007. They would receive a four-year renewable nonimmigrant visa. Heads of households would have to return to their home country within eight years, but would be guaranteed the right to return. Nonimmigrants could adjust their status to lawful permanent residence after paying $5,000 in fees and fines.
The bill also seeks to fortify border security by hiring 18,000 new border patrol agents, building 200 miles of vehicle barriers and nearly 400 miles of fencing along the United States-Mexico border. In addition, 70 ground-based radar and camera towers would be erected on border.