Chertoff Pushes Guest-Worker Program

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said Thursday that any overhaul of immigration law must include a guest-worker program to accommodate businesses’ need for labor and to ease pressure on law enforcement.

His comments to reporters came as the administration promotes President Bush’s vision for border security, which differs from immigration proposals to be considered in the House.

The House legislation is expected to focus on enforcement without addressing the issue of a guest-worker program, which some lawmakers dismiss as a bad idea.

The House is expected to pass its version of immigration legislation this month.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) has said that he plans to take up the immigration issue in February. He said the Senate would start with enforcement before considering any proposals for guest-worker programs.

During a trip to the Southwest this week, Bush supported an approach that integrated a guest-worker program with enforcement, and Chertoff reiterated that emphasis Thursday.

“We have no other choice if we don’t have a temporary-worker program,” he said.

“I think it’s going to be extraordinarily difficult to ask our Border Patrol agents and our [internal enforcement] agents to stem the tide that is driven by a huge economic engine of employers looking for people to do work that won’t be done by Americans.”

The administration’s guest-worker program, which Bush outlined in 2004, would allow undocumented workers to apply to work legally in the United States for as long as six years. They would then be expected to return to their home countries.

In his remarks to reporters, Chertoff outlined the administration’s Secure Border Initiative, a combination of added border personnel, infrastructure, planned technology and new legal tools that would create “a virtual fence ... a smart fence, not a stupid fence.”

Chertoff said the plan would involve stronger workplace enforcement, but in an interview he also said that “to really have a hope of enforcement, we’ve got to answer the very strong demand that there is for businesses to find employees.”

The administration’s theory is that the economic laws of supply and demand can help significantly reduce illegal immigration and control the borders within five years.

Chertoff said that if most employers were brought into a temporary-worker program and tough sanctions were used to punish those who continued to hire illegally, the demand for illegal labor would dry up and illegal immigrants would “have no reason to stay, because they will no longer be able to have jobs.”

But many House Republicans are reluctant to even consider a temporary-worker program.

“I think it’s a bad idea,” said Rep. Lamar Smith of Texas. “We have to enforce our law first. Every study shows a guest-worker program will reduce the wages of low-skilled Americans and citizens, and legal immigrants are hit the hardest.”

Smith is on the House Judiciary Committee, which is expected to approve a measure that focuses on border security and workplace enforcement.

The chairman, Rep. F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), has several proposals to work with.

They include one from Rep. Ken Calvert (R-Corona) that would broaden a program for checking a prospective employee’s identification with the Social Security Administration and the Department of Homeland Security.

Another proposal, in a bill already approved by the House Homeland Security Committee, would require the military to support Border Patrol agents.