Nonprofits fret over proposed immigration bill

By William Finn Bennett, North County Times

January 29, 2006

http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2006/01/24/news/top_stories/12306201614.txt

If an immigration reform bill moving through Congress becomes law, nonprofit organizations that help day laborers find work without making sure each client has a legal right to work in the U.S. could be subject to criminal prosecution, jail sentences and fines of up to $50,000....

Bill would punish helpers

In December, the U.S. House of Representatives approved the bill, HR 4437. It is now set to go before the Senate for review and possible changes.

Critics have blasted the bill for focusing primarily on beefing up the nation's borders and cracking down on those who hire illegal immigrants while failing to create a guest worker program that would allow foreign laborers to stay in the United States for a limited amount of time....

One feature in the bill calls for an employee verification system that would require employers and hiring halls to contact the federal government and provide identification numbers on laborers' visas or social security cards. Those numbers would then be checked against databases to confirm their validity. The government would then issue decisions on whether individual workers can be legally hired.

The bill makes it clear that the law would apply not only to employers but to any organization that helps workers obtain jobs....

UCLA, the University of Illinois and New York's New School University surveyed more than 117,000 day laborers at 264 hiring sites, in 20 states across the country.

The survey results showed that more than three-fourths of day laborers were illegal immigrants, and that 44 percent of those surveyed were denied food, water and breaks, in the previous two months. Nearly a third said they worked more hours than they bargained for, and 28 percent reported suffering insults or threats by employers....

Read the complete article.