Related Links

Americans are looking for work – 11.6 million of them to be exact. Thousands more are expected to have joined their ranks when February’s unemployment statistics are released Friday.

Groups that favor reduced immigration say that number will only climb higher unless President Obama and Congress work to reform immigration legislation.

In the meantime, advocates for immigration reduction are urging the federal government to temporarily suspend foreign workers from entering the U.S. in order to increase the number of jobs available to unemployed American citizens and permanent residents.

“It’s really not a complicated issue,” said Rick Oltman, a spokesman for Californians for Population Stabilization, a nonprofit group that advocates for immigration reduction. “Unemployment is up. The economy is down. Jobs are for American workers.”

Supporters of immigration reduction say that when millions are losing their jobs, it doesn’t make sense to allow more foreign workers to enter and serve in posts Americans could fill.

They point to the latest Department of Homeland Security statistics, which show about 1 million people obtained a green card – and permanent resident status -- in fiscal 2007, almost 42,000 of which were in Illinois. An additional 1.1 million temporary workers and trainees entered the U.S. that same year, up about 13.5 percent from the previous fiscal year.

These figures do not include the approximately 500,000 immigrants the Pew Hispanic Center estimates enter the U.S. illegally each year.

If the U.S. government continues to permit foreign workers to enter at this rate, supporters of immigration reduction say, even the millions of jobs President Obama promises his stimulus bill will create won’t be able to reverse the rising unemployment rate.

Roy Beck, president and CEO of NumbersUSA Education & Research Foundation, an immigration-reduction nonprofit organization, advocates a bill to temporarily stop most foreign workers from entering the U.S. until the economy improves and Congress can approve new immigration legislation.

The country could continue to allow refugees, spouses and minor children of green card holders to come in, Beck said, but only about 5,000 highly skilled laborers who are of “critical, national interest” should come to work.

“Congress needs to do the same thing it did with the stimulus package,” said Beck. “It doesn’t need to figure everything out long-term.”

But Robert LaLonde, a professor in the Harris School of Public Policy at the University of Chicago, said the number of highly skilled workers entering the U.S., even during a recession, should be much higher.

“The number should be in the hundreds of thousands,” said LaLonde, who is an expert in labor economics. “It’s probably not a good idea to change immigration policy because of the recession. Especially in Chicago, immigrants have played an important role in fostering growth and vitality.”

According to LaLonde, if foreign workers continue to enter the U.S. at the same rate as in recent years, there would be no negative effect on the economy. On the contrary, he said, this recruitment often stimulates the economy by meeting the demand for nuanced skill sets the American workforce currently lacks.

Fred Tsao, policy director for the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights, said the same was true of lower-skill jobs. He said the number of American workers available just doesn’t match up with the number of low-skill jobs.

Reducing foreign labor in the U.S. would cause a “severe economic mismatch in our labor markets [and] hinder our recovery,” Tsao said. “In the current economy, and even with the downturn, there are certain sectors of the economy that require [foreign] labor.”

During all phases of the economic cycle, immigrants and foreign workers also play a vital role as consumers, he added.

But immigration-reduction advocates say there are thousands of Americans willing to fill the low-skill jobs that foreign workers hold.

To increase the number of jobs available to U.S. citizens and permanent residents, immigration-reduction advocates are pushing to expand E-verify – currently a voluntary program that allows employers to electronically check a new hire’s employment eligibility, using a social security number. They say if all employers used E-verify, more Americans could go back to work.

The House version of the stimulus bill would have extended E-verify to all businesses receiving money from it, but the provision was cut in the Senate – something Dave Gorak, executive director of the Midwest Coalition to Reduce Immigration, says was a mistake.

“The stimulus bill provides absolutely no protection for American workers,” said Gorak, who supports legislation to make E-verify mandatory for all employers. “It’s impossible to allow anyone who wants to come into this country [to do so]. It’s just something that’s got to be dealt with, and pretty soon.”

That “pretty soon” might be quicker than some immigration-reduction advocates expect.

U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler, a Democrat from North Carolina, plans to reintroduce legislation he drafted in 2007 that would extend E-verify to all employers, his spokesman, Andrew Whalen, said. The new bill will be introduced with only minor changes to the original, Whalen said, and should be on the table before the end of this session of Congress.

Increased advocacy efforts have also shown some promise, supporters of immigration reduction say.

The Coalition for the Future American Worker -- an umbrella group that includes NumbersUSA and Californians for Population Stabilization -- launched two nationally syndicated, paid television commercials in February – both of which will run for several more months.

The first spot had more than 80,000 views on YouTube during its first week online, said Californians’ Oltman, and the other – which addresses U.S. Rep. Luis Gutierrez (D-Illinois) for his opposition to E-verify – has had more than 3,200 hits since it launched online Feb. 16.

NumbersUSA also submitted a petition to Obama at the end of February with more than 145,000 signatures demanding a stop to the entrance of most foreign workers and the expansion of the E-verify program.

Beck said he knows the chances of seeing legislation to stop the entrance of foreign workers is “pretty slim right now,” but says he will stay optimistic – and stay his course – until he sees the change his group wants.

“At the beginning it always looks impossible,” he said. “However, because of the economic situation it could change overnight. Our members are pounding Congress, we’re pushing them everyday. We have to create the conditions [to make] a break.”