04/ 02/ 2008
by Shannon McRae
As the immigration debate grows louder, NFIB urges Congress to act--and serves as the voice for small businesses in states that have grown tired of waiting on Washington.
Aaron Harmon needs help. His Utah landscaping business will lose $4 million this season if he can't find enough employees to complete jobs he's already been hired to do. Yet in a state with one of the lowest unemployment rates in the country, good help is hard to find. "Basically everyone in Utah who wants a job has a job," says Harmon, owner of West Jordan, Utah-based Odyssey Landscape.
For years, Harmon and his two partners have depended heavily on seasonal guest workers--immigrants who participate in the H-2B visa program and are allowed to work legally in the United States for a set amount of time, usually a few months, before returning to their home country. Businesses that hire these guest workers first must do everything possible to fill their positions with American workers, including advertising job openings, working with local unemployment agencies to identify potential employees and offering the jobs to any qualified domestic workers.
Harmon expected this year would be like any other and that his H-2B employees would be back in February. Many of them have returned from Mexico to work for his business for several years and are already trained. Last June he paid $15,000 in attorneys' and application fees to secure the visas for this year. In December, a letter arrived from Immigration Services that said his 20 visas had been certified. But two weeks later, the story changed.
"In January, we got word through our attorneys that we weren't going to get our employees," Harmon says. "They said the nationwide cap had been reached, and that was it. We were up the creek without a paddle."
Each year, the federal government caps the number of seasonal guest workers at 66,000 nationwide. An amendment to the law used to exempt returning employees from counting toward the total. But that provision expired last October, and now many small business owners are left without desperately needed help.
NFIB is part of a coalition that is urging Congress to raise the cap. "The statutory limit does not reflect economic realities," says NFIB Executive Vice President Dan Danner. This year the limit was reached on Jan. 3--before most small businesses that need temporary help during the summer months even had an opportunity to apply for H-2B workers.
"Since Congress has failed to act, many small businesses have been left wondering if they'll be able to count on this assistance," Danner says. "As a consequence, thousands were forced to scale back their business plans this year, which will have serious economic repercussions."
For Harmon, the lack of help means $4 million in lost revenue this year. "It affects everyone--including the U.S. citizens we employ," he says. "Bonuses are down, salaries are down: It's a widespread problem--all because we tried to follow the law."
Not all of Harmon's competitors follow such a straight path. "I know where my employees come from, and I know where a majority of my competitors' employees come from," Harmon says. When it comes to hiring illegal immigrants, "most of my competitors look the other way," he says. Harmon's story is one that's repeated by small business owners across the country.
A nationwide problem
Harmon's struggle is just one of the many problems surrounding immigration--an issue that has exploded in recent years. An NFIB survey found that more than 90 percent of members believe that illegal immigration is a serious problem, mostly because of the surge in growth among the immigrant population in recent years. Not since the last massive wave of immigration (from the 1880s to 1920s) has the United States seen such an influx in our foreign-born population. Scholars now say there are more than 35 million immigrants in the United States--and about 12 million of them are illegal.
Opinions on immigration are widespread, but two additional business challenges--and the ones NFIB members have said they want action on--are securing our borders and creating a workable employee verification system. "There's a difference between penalizing those who are knowing violators and creating a workable verification system that is fair to small business owners," Danner says.
Congress has twice failed to pass comprehensive immigration legislation, and little is likely to happen in the middle of a presidential election year. But listening to rising concerns among its members, NFIB refused to let the issue languish and worked closely with Rep. Heath Shuler (N.C.) to draft and introduce the SAVE (Secure America Through Verification and Enforcement) Act of 2007. NFIB was the only business group to work on the legislation, which addresses three key points in the immigration debate: border security, interior enforcement and worker verification.
"We were pleased that Rep. Shuler consistently considered the bill's small business impact," Danner says. "Legislation that complicates an already confusing issue and unfairly penalizes small businesses is pointless."
While NFIB has been clear that small business supports a federal employment eligibility verification system, we have reminded lawmakers that the system must address the differences in size and infrastructure in big businesses versus smaller ones. In working with Rep. Shuler on the SAVE Act, NFIB was adamant that it would only support a bill if reasonable limits on first-time penalties on small business were included. Shuler's bill also protects employers if the verification system gives incorrect information on a worker. Under the SAVE Act, small businesses with fewer than 30 employees would have four years before they would have to participate in the worker verification system. The bill has 132 cosponsors from both sides of the aisle. Sen. Mark Pryor (Ark.) introduced the companion bill in the Senate. Both bills have been referred to their respective committees in Congress, but neither chamber has taken action yet.
States take over
Fed up with the lack of action in Washington, D.C., many states have taken up immigration legislation themselves. More than 1,500 pieces of legislation related to immigration were introduced in state capitals last year--and 244 of the bills became law, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures.
State legislatures introduced almost three times as many bills on immigration in 2007 than in 2006, and this year isn't expected to be any different.
"If Congress refuses to act, we face a complex system of varying state laws that will only make it harder for small business owners," Danner says.
In Arizona, considered a main passageway to the United States for Latin Americans, the debate has grown vicious. Last year Arizona became the first state to pass an employer sanctions bill that authorizes county attorneys to suspend or revoke the business license of an employer who knowingly hires an illegal immigrant.
"Shutting down a business for as long as 10 days could be the death penalty for some of our members," says Michelle Bolton, NFIB/Arizona state director. "Our members support tougher employer sanctions for knowing violators and more secure borders, but this law in particular has been really scary. This has been one of the toughest issues Arizona small businesses have faced in years."
Border states aren't the only ones caught in the battle. In Oklahoma, Virginia and Colorado, NFIB is fighting to protect small business owners from being used as the scapegoats in this crisis. (Learn more about what's happening in these states on page 36.)
"This issue isn't going anywhere," Danner says. "We'll only hear more about it both on the presidential campaign trail and in statehouses. NFIB will continue to make sure that the voice of small business is heard in the deafening immigration debate."
From the April/May 2008 MyBusiness Magazine
