Chertoff's Pressure on Congress to Act on Comprehensive Immigration Reform

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The Bush Administration is acting on its own -- (as usual) implementing immigration reform without the help of Congress.. Even Chertoff agrees that this recent move could deeply affect the U.S. economy. The timing of this shows how oblivious the administration is to the country's problemmatic economic situation - which is well described by a NY Times headline "World's Banks Intervene to Calm Volatile Markets."
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Immigration rules may hurt economy
Crackdown on employers could cause havoc in agriculture, healthcare and other industries, Chertoff acknowledges.
By Nicole Gaouette, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 11, 2007


WASHINGTON -- Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff predicted painful economic fallout from the array of immigration enforcement measures the administration unveiled Friday in an attempt to choke off the jobs "magnet" that draws illegal immigrants.
...The enforcement approach is aimed partly at placating conservative Republicans who are angry about the administration's failure to enforce existing immigration laws and the president's support for a plan that would have allowed illegal immigrants to become citizens.

But it also could create a political climate that might lead to the comprehensive changes the administration has sought, including a guest worker program and some accommodation for the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants in the United States. Chertoff said the provisions, some of which take effect in 30 days, could push corporate America to apply more pressure on Congress to reconsider broad reforms.

"I'm not a lawmaker, but I presume, at some point, somebody's going to take a look and say, 'We've got to find a way to address this problem,' and that's probably going to require some legal changes," he said. But he stressed that "this is not an effort to punish Congress."

Gutierrez framed the issue more starkly: "We do not have the workers our economy needs to keep growing each year. The demographics simply are not on our side. Ultimately, Congress will have to pass comprehensive immigration reform."
...Others expressed skepticism about the Department of Homeland Security's ability to enforce the measures, pointing out that the department cannot even come up with the number of high-skilled visa-holders in the country. "The agency that can't count is now going to go on this enforcement gig," said Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-San Jose), chairwoman of the House immigration subcommittee. "We'll see how they do."

Business groups predicted the effect would be broadly felt.

"It's going to be awful; the harvest is going to be awful," said Laura Foote Reiff, co-chairwoman of the Business Immigration Group, predicting the effect on agriculture, where more than half of the 2.5 million workers are believed to be illegal. "People will feel it when they go grocery shopping, when they read in the newspaper that we're importing our meat from China."
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for complete article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-immig11aug11,0,7151802.story?coll=la-home-center