April 19, 2005
WASHINGTON – The Senate is scheduled to vote today on a proposal to grant legal status to at least 500,000 undocumented farmworkers, a plan that immigration advocates hope might set the stage for a broader program to legalize immigrants at work in all areas of the U.S. economy.
The measure's sponsors say it would stabilize the agricultural work force and protect workers from abusive employers. Critics argue it would reward those who crossed the border illegally and generate more illegal immigration.
"We either create a legal work force, a work force that is identifiable, or we keep stumbling down this road" of massive illegal immigration and an uncontrolled border, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said in opening debate yesterday.
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The future work requirement marks a sharp departure from the 1986 federal legislation that granted amnesty to 2.7 million illegal immigrants who could demonstrate that they had worked for a specific period of time before passage. But critics warn that the limits will be overwhelmed by a crush of immigrants scrambling across the border to make fraudulent claims that they are eligible.
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20050419-9999-1n19agjobs.html"The business of America is business" - Calvin Coolidge
And the politics of business is to screw the American worker.