IS A STEALTH IMMIGRATION POLICY SMART?

Date: Thursday, July 17, 2003 1:09 PM

JOB DESTRUCTION NEWSLETTER

www.ZaZona.com

As the ol' saying goes, "give them an inch and they will want a mile." India and China are now demanding that Free Trade Agreements be made with all 146 nations in the WTO. They will rightfully argue that all nations should be treated the same as Singapore and Chile.

Here is a good lesson on why Trade Promotion Authority is so dangerous:

[The] "Administration can't substantially change anything it
has already agreed to with Chile and Singapore, at least not
without ripping up the entire pact."

Even worse, Congress gave up their Constitutional right to change these agreements because they can only vote up or down on them. So there we have it, if Congress demands that Bush change the agreements then Bush will have to get Singapore and Chile to agree to the changes.

Trade Promotion Authority should have never been given to Bush or any other president. Clinton tried for his entire tenure as president to get TPA but the Republicans blocked him. The Democrats can't seem to muster the courage to do the same thing to Bush. Perhaps the Democrats are afraid to anger their corporate donors in view of the immense amount of money the Bush campaign has raised so far.

TPA needs to be immediately revoked before Bush does further damage. No president should have the power to take away our sovereignty.

Business Week p.54 7/21/2003
http://www.businessweek.com/premium/content/03_29/b3842082_mz021.htm?se=1

IS A STEALTH IMMIGRATION POLICY SMART?

COMMENTARY - By Paul Magnusson

w/Manjeet Kripalani in Bombay

Should trade treaties be used to regulate U.S. immigration policies? That's the question critics are asking about the
two new trade pacts the Bush Administration signed this spring with Chilean Foreign Minister Soledad Alvear and Singapore Prime Minister Goh Chok Tong. With little public discussion, the White House agreed to create new visa categories to allow thousands of professionals from each country to work in the U.S., on top of existing visas such as H1(b)s.

It's no small issue. The Administration hopes to use the new visa idea as a template for continuing trade talks with
Australia, Morocco, and countries in Central America. At the same time, developing nations, led by India and China,
are clamoring to make the new visa provisions available to all 146 nations in the World Trade Organization. The result
could be a vast influx of foreign professionals from many low-wage nations, competing with American citizens for high-paying jobs.

This is a hasty way to go about making such fundamental changes to U.S. immigration policy. Indeed, as details of the new visas have begun to emerge, a backlash has been building, even among usually doctrinaire freetraders in Congress. Democrats and even some Republicans argue that the visas haven't been coordinated with existing laws on foreign workers. They make a valid point: Complex trade agreements, which increasingly affect the entire U.S. economy and require changes in U.S. laws and social policies, should not be considered in secret, or in isolation from all other legislation. "Trade agreements
aren't just about tariffs but an increasingly broad range of subjects, and that requires openness and a broadbipartisan foundation," insists Representative Sander M. LeVin (D-Mich.), a party leader on trade issues.

More broadly, the visa spat stands as the first test of the fast- track procedures Congress established last August for
handling trade agreements. Under the fast-track approach, Congress must take an up or down vote on the Chile and Singapore deals, as well as on the accompanying legislation required to implement them. As a result, it can't consider the new visas on their own merits. Instead, Congress must either accept the sweeping changes to immigration law - or vote down the entire trade deal, which slashes tariffs on a wide range of U.S. exports to those two nations. While the typically secretive nature of trade talks has obscured many details about the new visas, some specifics have come out. The pacts call for a new professional visa category that would allow as many as 6,800 college-educated workers to enter the U.S. each year - l,400 from Chile and 5,400 from Singapore. They could fill virtually any service-sector job in industries such as finance,
engineering, medicine, and law. The visas also could be renewed annually with no limit, meaning they essentially would give immigrants open-ended permission to settle in the U.S.

+------------------------------------------------+
| The trade pacts' fine print: Tenative |
| new trade deals with Chile and Singapore |
| create new types of visas for foreign |
| professionals to work in the U.S. Such |
| visas would probably: |
| |
| > Let, in thousands of workers In |
| addition to those who now come, in on |
| H-1(b)visas. |
| |
| > Be for one year: but renewable without |
| limit. By contrast, H1(b)s expire |
| after a maximum of six years. |
| |
| > Relax the H1(b} rule that says work |
| visas may be issued only if there's a |
| shortage of U.S.workers in a |
| particular job category. |
| |
| > Become an integral part of each pact, |
| so that Congress can't alter them in |
| anyway or vote on them individually. |
+------------------------------------------------+

As members of Congress learned more about the visas in recent weeks, some have begun to kick up a fuss. House Judiciary Committee Chairman F. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), whose committee has jurisdiction over immigration, was incensed to learn that a pact could rewrite visa law without going through his committee. He has demanded that U.S. Trade Representative Robert B. Zoellick apply tighter restrictions to them before Congress votes yea or nay. "It was very clear that Republicans on the Judiciary Committee do not like this process of changing immigration law through the fast-track procedure," says J. Robert Vastine president of the Coalition of Service Industries,, an industry group that supports the two trade deals and the visa changes.

Administration officials say they are trying hard to accommodate some of the objections. "It has been a collaborative procedure," asserts one trade official. For example, she says that the Administration has agreed to require that the new visa holders be paid prevailing U.S. wages, as in the current Hl(b) Vlsa program. But other potentially divisive points aren't yet clear, such as whether all employers must prove they cannot find qualified Americans before bringing in a foreign professional. Initially, the White House shared the terms with only a few members of Congress, mostly friendly Republicans. Critics also point out that the Administration can't substantially change anything it has already agreed to with Chile and
Singapore, at least not without ripping up the entire pact.

Supporters of the new visas argue that developing nations will fill many of these jobs one way or another. "If [the U.S.] can't import people, then jobs will just be exported from the U.S.," says Kiran Karnik, president of NASSCOM, India's largest software-industry association. U. S., employers also say they stand to benefit.

Even so, something is missing in the consideration of these two trade deals: a broader and more deliberative debate
about all the policies affected. Although it's rarely acknowledged, trade deals today involve substantial rewriting of social and economic policy. For that reason, they're too important to be railroaded through Congress.

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Rob Sanchez is board member of NAEA - www.NAEA.US

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