Congress Considers New Rules, and Businesses Worry About Finding Workers
By S. Mitra Kalita and Krissah Williams
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, March 27, 2006; A01
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![Brett McMahon of Miller & Long, left, discusses immigration issues with engineer Ivan Perez. Perez has been in the United States for six years.]()
![A civil defense corps that gained national attention in Arizona has formed in Maryland, prompting a political battle over the nearly 10,000 day laborers in the state.]()
Fight Over Day Laborers Shifts to Maryland
A civil defense corps that gained national attention in Arizona has formed in Maryland, prompting a political battle over the nearly 10,000 day laborers in the state. On one side is the Maryland Minuteman. On the other side is the immigration advocacy group Casa of Maryland.
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Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, March 27, 2006; A01
Year after year, Professional Grounds Inc. runs a help-wanted ad to find landscapers and groundskeepers. Starting wage: $7.74 per hour.
In a good year, three people call. Most years, no one does.
So the Springfield company relies on imported labor -- seasonal guest workers allowed to immigrate under the federal guest-worker program -- to keep itself running. For 10 months this year, 23 men from Mexico and Central America will spend their days mulching and mowing, seeding and sodding for Professional Grounds.
Occasionally, company President Bill Trimmer asks himself: If I doubled wages, would native-born Americans apply? He thinks he knows
the
answer.
"I don't think it's a wage situation. It's the type of work and the nature of the work. It's hard, backbreaking work," said Trimmer, who started the company 31 years ago. "I think we're a more affluent society now. They expect more. Everybody expects more. . . . I have contracts, and they want an affordable price, too."
Here lies the dilemma facing Congress as it attempts an immigration overhaul. Businesses say it is hard to persuade Americans to perform the unskilled jobs that immigrants easily fill. Significantly higher wages might work, but that increase would be passed on to unhappy consumers, forcing Americans to give up under-$10 manicures and $15-per-hour paint and lawn jobs.
Yet against a backdrop of heightened scrutiny of those who cross U.S. borders and the estimated 12 million migrants already here illegally, most everyone agrees that the current immigration system warrants a severe makeover.
A recent study b
y the
Pew Hispanic Center estimated that unauthorized immigrants make up nearly 5 percent of the labor force. In the Washington region, they make up nearly 10 percent of the 3.1 million-strong workforce, providing mainly unskilled labor.
The federal government has a work visa -- known as H-2B -- that aims to help unskilled migrants enter the country legally. But the government issues only about 66,000 new H-2B visas each year. The guest workers, who generally take jobs in businesses such as restaurants, amusement parks, cleaning companies and landscaping firms, are allowed to stay for 10 months.
The immigration measure passed by the House last year would allow the guest-worker program to lapse. Today, the Senate Judiciary Committee resumes debating legislation proposed by Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). It would create a new guest-worker program that would allow foreigners to enter the United States for three years, with the possibility of renewal for another t
hree
years.
Both House and Senate plans place on employers the onus for verifying the legal status of workers with the creation of a national database of Social Security or work identification numbers. Besides requiring enforcement, the proposals would impose criminal penalties on employers who hire someone not authorized to work in the United States.
Under current law, companies must review two forms of government-issued identification to verify that a job applicant is a legal resident. Beyond keeping copies of IDs on file, many businesses say they do little more than take workers at their word. While some readily dismiss illegal workers, they don't necessarily report them and their whereabouts to the federal government.
Businesses say they already patrol job applications to sift out counterfeit documents. At least four out of 10 applicants for jobs at Harry's Essential Grille in Vienna present work documents that look like frauds, such as Soc
ial
Security cards that feel too thin, said Jason Steward, manager of the restaurant.
"You have a gut feeling," Steward said. The company he works for, Essential Restaurant Holdings LLC, has hired 200 people since opening its two Northern Virginia restaurants 2 1/2 years ago. About half of its workers are immigrants. He does not object to checking a Social Security number in a national database. But he worries about being the first line of defense for the company. If he messes up, Essential Restaurants could be fined or face criminal penalties under some of the proposals before Congress.
Brett McMahon, vice president of Bethesda-based Miller & Long Concrete Construction Co., one of the biggest concrete contractors in the country, with $300 million in annual revenue, said his concern is that the legislation would essentially turn his company into "an enforcer of who's legal and who's not." McMahon said, "It's nowhere near that simple to check."
In
the past 15 years, the Labor Department has audited McMahon's company five times looking for illegal workers -- each time finding none, McMahon said. He added that the House bill threatens to bring his business to a "screeching halt" because there is no provision for a guest-worker program or for dealing with the undocumented immigrants already working.
But advocates of tighter borders say hiring foreigners should be difficult, not just for security but to limit competition between less-skilled immigrants and Americans.
"Employers in many of these sectors have gotten themselves into a Catch-22 situation where if they do not look the other way and hire illegal workers, they will not be competitive with other businesses," said Jack Martin, a spokesman for the Federation for American Immigration Reform, an advocacy group governed by business leaders and activists favoring national immigration limits.
"The wages and working conditions w
here
there are large numbers of illegal workers have been driven down to the point where those jobs are not as attractive to American workers," Martin said.
According to the Pew Hispanic Center data, undocumented workers tend to be clustered in service and construction jobs and make up more than half of the region's janitorial and landscape workers. Forty-three percent of the region's construction workers are illegally in the United States or have only temporary work authorization, the data show.
Wages for landscaping and groundskeeping workers in the Washington area have risen slightly in recent years, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, from an average of $9.61 per hour in 1999 to $10.51 in 2004. Professional Grounds' Trimmer said most employees, including guest workers, earn $9 to $11 per hour.
Construction wages in the Washington area have risen from an average of $15.86 in 1999 to $17.19 in 2004, according to the bureau. McMahon e
stimated
that construction wages these days are even higher -- roughly $20 an hour, plus health care.
"People think construction is about hiring day laborers in a Lowe's parking lot and throwing them in a pickup and paying them $2 an hour," McMahon said.
The company has roughly 60 projects underway, including offices, hotels and condominiums, and employs about 2,800 workers in the Washington area -- three-fourths of them immigrants.
"Every time I put up a crane, they are the guys who show up," McMahon said.
At Professional Grounds' Springfield office, Trimmer said the guest-worker program insulates him from having to deal with forged documents. Trimmer started using the H-2B program about five years ago to fill the void left by high school and college students who preferred air-conditioned summer internships over the work he could offer.
The guest workers arrive in February or March and pay $40 a week for housing subsidized
by the
company. A van picks up and drops off those who can't drive; workers who have driver's licenses pay $3 per day for the use of a company car. Workers pay income, Social Security and Medicare taxes.
One of his workers, Abelardo Flores, said he likes returning to his wife and three children in Mexico after making money for 10 months. Two other workers, Luciano Arango and Marcos Ochoa, said they would like to permanently live in the United States someday. All said they had worked for the company last year. Trimmer cited investments he makes in the guest workers, from English classes to housing, as proof that he views them as more than cheap labor.
Once, Trimmer confessed, he did hire an illegal worker: a Nicaraguan man named Victor Parrales on a tourist visa.
Next week will mark Parrales's 22nd year with the company; Professional Grounds sponsored his green card, and he eventually became a citizen. Parrales now owns a house in Alexandria and b
oasts
the title of vice president.
A piece of paper taped to Parrales's office door advertises that Professional Grounds needs more workers. In fact, the company says it will pay workers who bring forward qualified candidates a $1,000 referral fee.
Staff writers Dana Hedgpeth, Neil Irwin, Cecilia Kang and Michael S. Rosenwald contributed to this report.
Brett McMahon of Miller & Long, left, discusses immigration issues with engineer Ivan Perez. Perez has been in the United States for six years. (By Sarah L. Voisin -- The Washington Post)
Video
A civil defense corps that gained national attention in Arizona has formed in Maryland, prompting a political battle over the nearly 10,000 day laborers in the state. On one side is the Maryland Minuteman. On the other side is the immigration advocacy group Casa of Maryland.
Note: An earlier version of this video contained a photograph of a border patrol group not affiliated with the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps.
© 2006 The Washington Post Company
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