10% of young working ago persons in U.S. are non-citizens

And half of them are undocumented. This I derived from 2000 year estimates of 18-24 year old non-citizens by Jeff Passell, now of at the Pew Hispanic Center. Passell estimated that there were 2.9 million non-citizens in this age range. These young adults were 16% of the 18.5 million non-citizen population – a markedly higher rate than for the entire population – 9.6% were in this age group in 2000. Passel estimated that 51.3% were undocumented; 35.4% had green card (legal permanent status), 5.3% were refugees, and 7.4% were non immigrants (temporary workers, students, etc. There are about 600,000 foreign students in America. It just seems more). Bottom line: we are depending on foreign workers for one tenth of our new entrants into the workforce.

Roll call vote for S. 2611 62 yes 36 no

Akaka (D-HI), Yea
Alexander (R-TN), Nay
Allard (R-CO), Nay
Allen (R-VA), Nay
Baucus (D-MT), Yea
Bayh (D-IN), Yea
Bennett (R-UT), Yea
Biden (D-DE), Yea
Bingaman (D-NM), Yea
Bond (R-MO), Nay
Boxer (D-CA), Yea
Brownback (R-KS), Yea
Bunning (R-KY), Nay
Burns (R-MT), Nay
Burr (R-NC), Nay
Byrd (D-WV), Nay
Cantwell (D-WA), Yea
Carper (D-DE), Yea
Chafee (R-RI), Yea
Chambliss (R-GA), Nay
Clinton (D-NY), Yea
Coburn (R-OK), Nay
Cochran (R-MS), Nay
Coleman (R-MN), Yea
Collins (R-ME), Yea
Conrad (D-ND), Yea
Cornyn (R-TX), Nay
Craig (R-ID), Yea
Crapo (R-ID), Nay
Dayton (D-MN), Yea
DeMint (R-SC), Nay
DeWine (R-OH), Yea
Dodd (D-CT), Yea
Dole (R-NC), Nay
Domenici (R-NM), Yea
Dorgan (D-ND), Nay
Durbin (D-IL), Yea
Ensign (R-NV), Nay
Enzi (R-WY), Nay
Feingold (D-WI), Yea
Feinstein (D-CA), Yea
Frist (R-TN), Yea
Graham (R-SC), Yea
Grassley (R-IA), Nay
Gregg (R-NH), Yea
Hagel (R-NE), Yea
Harkin (D-IA), Yea
Hatch (R-UT), Nay
Hutchison (R-TX), Nay
Inhofe (R-OK), Nay
Inouye (D-HI), Yea
Isakson (R-GA), Nay
Jeffords (I-VT), Yea
Johnson (D-SD), Yea
Kennedy (D-MA), Yea
Kerry (D-MA), Yea
Kohl (D-WI), Yea
Kyl (R-AZ), Nay
Landrieu (D-LA), Yea
Lautenberg (D-NJ), Yea
Leahy (D-VT), Yea
Levin (D-MI), Yea
Lieberman (D-CT), Yea
Lincoln (D-AR), Yea
Lott (R-MS), Nay
Lugar (R-IN), Yea
Martinez (R-FL), Yea
McCain (R-AZ), Yea
McConnell (R-KY), Yea
Menendez (D-NJ), Yea
Mikulski (D-MD), Yea
Murkowski (R-AK), Yea
Murray (D-WA), Yea
Nelson (D-FL), Yea
Nelson (D-NE), Nay
Obama (D-IL), Yea
Pryor (D-AR), Yea
Reed (D-RI), Yea
Reid (D-NV), Yea
Roberts (R-KS), Nay
Rockefeller (D-WV), Not Voting
Salazar (D-CO), Not Voting
Santorum (R-PA), Nay
Sarbanes (D-MD), Yea
Schumer (D-NY), Yea
Sessions (R-AL), Nay
Shelby (R-AL), Nay
Smith (R-OR), Yea
Snowe (R-ME), Yea
Specter (R-PA), Yea
Stabenow (D-MI), Nay
Stevens (R-AK), Yea
Sununu (R-NH), Nay
Talent (R-MO), Nay
Thomas (R-WY), Nay
Thune (R-SD), Nay
Vitter (R-LA), Nay
Voinovich (R-OH), Yea
Warner (R-VA), Yea
Wyden (D-OR), Yea

Senate passes S. 2611 62 to 36

The vote by region. I am trying to get the vote by senator:
REGION, YES, NO, NOT VOTING
Midwest, 16,8, 0
Northeast 16,2, 0
South 13,18,1
West 17,8,1
Total 62,36,2

Senate ready to vote on final S.2611 with guest worker provision intact

Go to Shusterman.com for amendment by amendment summaries of the bill. I could not find any that materially affected the guest workers provisions. In fact, the Senate decisively turned down on 5/16 an amendment to remove the guest worker title to the act (see below). As I have noted before, the whole issue of identification requirements is held hostage by bureaucratic delays and confusion about getting these IDs in place, and that will take yearsto resolve.
The Liberty Post summarized the floor debate and final vote 69- 28 against an amendment to repeal the guest worker provision.
Senator Dorgan then offered amendment #4017, to repeal the guest worker program in S.2611 (Title IV).

Continue reading Senate ready to vote on final S.2611 with guest worker provision intact

Summary of Senate Bill 2611

This is the bill passed by the Senate. The summary below, taken from the Library of Congress’ leigslative website, is for the 4/7/06 version of the bill. I copy from below the critical section missing in the House bill: a guest worker program: Establishes a temporary guest worker program (H-2C visa). Provides: (1) that the Secretary of Homeland Security shall determine H-2C eligibility; (2) for a three-year admission with one additional three-year extension; (3) issuance of H-4 nonimmigrant visas for accompanying or following spouse and children; (4) for U.S. worker protection; (5) for implementation of an alien employment management system; and (6) establishment of a Temporary Worker Task Force.

Continue reading Summary of Senate Bill 2611

My prediction for an immigration reform bill this year

I predict that Congress will not resolve in conference committee its bicameral differences over the legilsation. Thus, every member of Congress will be able to report to her or his district at least one vote on immigration reform, without there being a bill that gets to the President to sign.
All parties now, having taken the measure of public sentiment and having inspected their voting constituencies, feel that being on record for passing a bill is at least marginally better in terms of the November Congressional races than not being on record for passing a bill. A conference committee deadlock allows everyone to say that she or he has tried to pass a bill.
I have a very hard time with the notion that House Republican conservatives will retreat from their anti-guest worker stance. And the Senate will nevet drop its relatively strong guest worker program.

How much illegal workers pay to Social Security: over $6B

One of the many ironies in the country’s upheavals over the illegal immigrant issue is that, right now, Social Security is collecting over $6 billion a year in payroll deductions from these workers. This is the size of the annual take – the estimate for 2002 is $6.4 billion – flowing into a suspense account because the social security number used for the deduction was not recognized on the government’s database. None of this money today can or is claimed by the workers making the contributions.
The total recorded payroll associated with this inflow is over $200 billion and growing by about $50 billion, suggesting that more and more illegal immigrants are participating in formal wage income as opposed to cash compensation.
The total take adds up to about 1.5% of American payrolls. Assume that these workers are being paid on average one third of legal Americans. This suggests that 4.5% of the contributors to social security today are illegal workers.
— from the NY Times.

Millions of illegal working immigrants may be here on expired visas

According to an article in the Boston Globe, a large minority of illegal workers may have entered the U.S. with a valid visa, then stayed on after the visa’s expiration. The Globe estimates that 40% of all illegal immigrants (which it estimates at 12 million) are here in this manner. This expired visa figure seems to be very high, but I am willing to grant that there are many over-extenders of visas and that a large share of these people work. I expect that the vast majority of non-Hispanic illegal workers in the U.S. are here by way of visa overstays. It is possible that the total 12 million estimate needs to be increased to reflect their numbers, for instance in computer-related jobs.
The Globe reports that “Immigration analysts say visa violators represent a greater portion of undocumented immigrants in the Boston area, with its huge student population and large concentration of European immigrants.

But no amount of border enforcement will have an impact on ”visa overstays,” because they don’t cross the border illegally in the first place, said Deborah Meyers, a senior analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a Washington think tank. ”The overstay component has been overlooked,” Meyers said. ”It’s very important to make sure you’re actually trying to solve the whole problem, not just the most visible parts of the problem. . . . From a security perspective, in some ways the overstay population is a bigger threat.”

Two of the 19 Sept. 11 hijackers were in the United States on expired visas. At least six others had otherwise violated immigration laws but were nonetheless able to stay in the United States, according to the 9/11 Commission report. Of the $1.95 billion border security request Bush filed last week, only $30 million will go toward tracking down and monitoring those who overstay legally obtained visas, said Michael P. Jackson, deputy secretary of Homeland Security.

Department of Homeland Security had only 51 full-time agents assigned to track down the more than 4 million people who overstayed visas and were in the country in 2004. Of the 301,046 leads the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency received in a one-year period on possible visa violations, fewer than half were investigated. Only 4,164 were referred to field agents to pursue, and 671 apprehensions were made.
There is a program called US-VISIT which photographs visa holders entering the country. But, according to the Globe, “US-VISIT has serious limitations. It tracks everyone entering the country, but it is a pilot program, tracking only those leaving through 12 airports and two seaports. Expanding that program nationwide is several years off. ”

Mistreatment of H-2B immigrant guest forestry workers

In late 2005 the Sacrament Bee published the best expose of occupational dangers for immigrant Hispanic labor in some time. The focus: works who despite the supposed protections of so-called H-2B forest guest worker program for agriculture were exploited in the common fashion: exposed to job risks for which they were unprepared, cheating on payroll, and generally deficient working conditions. Some 10,000 works have come to the U.S. to “plant trees across the nation and thin fire-prone woods out West as part of the Bush administration’s Healthy Forests Initiative.” The Bee reports: “A nine-month Bee investigation based on more than 150 interviews across Mexico, Guatemala and the United States and 5,000 pages of records unearthed through the Freedom of Information Act has found pineros are victims of employer exploitation, government neglect and a contracting system that insulates landowners – including the U.S. government – from responsibility.”
Confined Space has summarized the Bee’s articles. In this posting and future ones, I will excerpt extensively from it, starting with….

…in the backwoods, where pineros often lack adequate training, protective gear or medical supplies, where they sweat, struggle and suffer, the current forest guest worker program casts a shadow across its future…..Across Honduras and Guatemala, 14 guest workers lay in tombs, victims of the worst non-fire-related workplace accident in the history of U.S. forests.

Continue reading Mistreatment of H-2B immigrant guest forestry workers