Author: Staff

Current proposals in Congress to overhaul our nation’s immigration system include changes to our temporary foreign worker programs. In this arena—one of the most contentious aspects of reform—the challenge is to balance the legitimate needs of employers for a reliable, flexible workforce with protections for both native and foreign workers. In our current system, temporary workers can be high skilled, such as those who enter on the well-known H-1B visa, or lower skilled, such as those who enter as seasonal workers in agriculture, hospitality, recreation, or landscaping. Proposed changes to the law add fraud and abuse prevention measures as well as worker protections while simultaneously increasing the number of workers allowed to enter. The Senate has also proposed a new program that would admit workers with less than a bachelor’s degree to work in year-round jobs with the option to become permanent residents if sponsored by an employer.via Immigration Facts: Temporary Foreign Workers | Brookings...

EIGHT “carpet shoes” outside Jim Chiltern’s house testify to the frugal innovation of Mexico’s people-smuggling industry. These shoes, bound pieces of denim with soft soles designed to leave no trace in the Arizona desert, have been lost or abandoned by illegal immigrants traversing Mr Chiltern’s 50,000-acre cattle ranch, which stretches to the Mexican border. Mr Chiltern displays them to help convince visitors that, whatever the politicians in Washington may say, America’s southern border is far from secure.Whether the country gets a long-overdue reform of its immigration system, including a route to citizenship for the 11m illegal migrants now living there, may hinge on this question. The bill currently being debated in the Senate devotes $4.5 billion to border security, including yet more drones, fences and guards with guns. But many Republicans, recalling the multitudes that arrived after Ronald Reagan’s amnesty in 1986, want even more. via The US-Mexico border: Secure enough | The...