Kennedy Amendment Would "gut" Protections for American Workers

Kennedy Amendment Would 'gut' Protections For American Workers
This really is similar to a job interview between two candidates - a foreign worker and a U.S. worker. Who should decide whether the U.S. worker is qualified? Not the foreign worker, Cornyn says

U.S. Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas), chairman of the Immigration, Border Security and Citizenship subcommittee, made the following statement Thursday regarding the Kennedy amendment (4065), which Cornyn points out would gut the protections of the Cornyn/Kyl amendment passed just last night with a bipartisan majority:

"Less than 24 hours after the Senate, in a bipartisan move, strengthened U.S. worker protections, Senator Kennedy has offered an amendment that would gut the provisions and hurt hard-working Americans across the country.

"The amendment the Senate passed yesterday simply requires an employer to look for U.S. workers first. If proponents of the compromise bill were serious when they say that certain provisions are needed because immigrants do work Americans won't do, then they would have supported this amendment.

"While immigration reform on its face is about foreign workers, we must not lose sight of how those new foreign workers impact qualified and willing U.S. workers. It is our job in the Senate to consider the U.S. worker first when we create new visa categories, and the original bill failed to do so.

"The amendment we passed yesterday would require that jobs in the United States be offered to an American worker before a foreign worker. That amendment has been endorsed by the administration, because it is consistent with the President's principle that U.S. workers come first.

"The Kennedy amendment comes less than 24 hours after we passed a clear, unambiguous amendment with bipartisan support. But this amendment would gut those new protections for American workers. The Kennedy amendment would allow a foreign worker to effectively determine whether any qualified U.S. workers are available.

"This really is similar to a job interview between two candidates - a foreign worker and a U.S. worker. Who should decide whether the U.S. worker is qualified? The employer should, not the foreign worker. But the Kennedy amendment turns that policy on its head and would allow the foreign worker to decide that the U.S. worker does not have the required skills or education.

"The amendment offered by Senator Kennedy would also allow an alien who works a total of less than 40 days in the United States - yes, about six days a year - to obtain a green card.

"That employment ‘requirement' - one day out of every sixty - could be self-employment. For some, that ‘track record' of employment should be sufficient evidence that the worker is invaluable to the American economy.

"What that means is that up to 200,000 unskilled workers a year would become eligible for a green card - regardless of economic conditions, regardless of whether that worker has been actually employed for four years, and most importantly, regardless of whether there are unemployed U.S. workers available to fill those jobs.

"Senator Kennedy has suggested that, by requiring an employer to determine that there is not a qualified U.S. worker, that every foreign worker will be exploited. Let me be clear: worker exploitation and abuse is not and should not be tolerated. But this amendment has nothing to do with worker exploitation.

"Every single foreign worker could, at any time, change employers. Every worker is protected under the same laws that apply to U.S. workers. And the Department of Labor has broad authority to investigate any allegation of abuse.

"This amendment is not about the foreign worker - it is about U.S. workers and whether they will even have a fair opportunity to compete for the job. The amendment the Senate passed Wednesday moves us in the direction of looking out for U.S. workers, and I would hate to see the Senate, less than 24 hours later, undo that hard work."

As currently written, the immigration bill pending before the Senate would allow unskilled temporary workers - 200,000 a year - to obtain permanent green cards regardless of whether U.S. workers are available to fill the jobs. The Cornyn amendment fixed that flaw in the pending bill. The Cornyn amendment requires the Department of Labor to certify that there is not a U.S. worker who is able, willing, qualified and available to fill the job position that is offered to the foreign worker.

http://cornyn.senate.gov/index.asp?f=record&lid=1&yid=1&rid=237183&pg=1