Is the thrust of immigration reforms towards legals or illegals?
By The American Bazaar Staff
WASHINGTON, DC: That President Barack Obama intends to take executive action to implement immigration reforms has been circulating around for quite some time now, and with reports that the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) is looking for vendors to print 35 million Green Cards and Employment Authorization Documents (EAD) over the next few years, speculation is sky high that there will be a massive influx of new immigrants into the country.
But the foremost question legal immigrants’ have is how much of those reform include them, skilled workers who are waiting for permanent residency and those who are waiting for EADS? Or is it that the talk of executive action is merely an election gimmick, a subterfuge by the Democrats to gain Latino voters’ trust? Or even if it happens, is the thrust going to be only on reforms to give amnesty to those who here illegally?
Going by the Labor Secretary Thomas Perez’ remarks, however, it does seems that part of the reforms that Obama intends to take definitely involves raising the level of skilled workers in the country, which translates to logical reasoning of giving priority relief to legal immigrants who are here already.
Addressing the National Press Club this week, Perez, who is reportedly on the short list to be Obama’s next attorney general, said the country needed to “fix our broken immigration system” with comprehensive amnesty legislation that is “big and bold” to ensure that there is “shared prosperity,” which he said is a goal of his Labor Department, reported Breitbart.
Though the Congressional Budget Office determined that comprehensive amnesty legislation would lower the wages of American workers, Labor Secretary Perez championed it. Despite studies from Harvard Professor George Borjas and the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that have concluded otherwise, Perez said amnesty legislation would also increase wages for American workers.
Perez, who worked on immigration reform with the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA), said he has also “spent a lot of time with folks in the Silicon Valley” in response to a question about Silicon Valley business leaders demanding immigration reform “because there is not enough workers to fill the demand for high-tech workers.”
The Breitbart report said Perez spoke about the importance of giving more opportunities to enter the middle class, but he did not address anti-immigration critic Professor Ron Hira’s concerns that massively increasing guest-worker permits for high-tech workers would “cut off” entry into the middle class for people from working-class backgrounds.