Lift the immigration cap

Current system is sound, but we need more guest workers

Mark Kramer

Published June 16, 2007 at midnight

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I still see Jim around town. He was one of my best foremen. The 27-year-old stood 6-foot-2 and could lift 250 pounds. Although a college graduate, the ponytailed English major loved working outdoors. He put in 50 hours a week planting trees and bushes at $6 an hour. That was 30 years ago.

Today, Ricardo is one of my best landscape foremen. A Mexican citizen, he speaks sound English and manages new sprinkler installations, decks and lawns. He spends seven months a year in the United States, returning to his wife and kids in Juarez each winter. He earns $14 an hour.

Thirty years ago, hippies like Jim and me wanted to get dirty in the sun, grass and weeds. Americans don't today. When JBK Landscape advertises for laborers like Ricardo, we get just a trickle of applicants. It's not the money. We pay $14 an hour for skilled foremen and $25 an hour for snow removal. But these are outdoor jobs, in the sun, snow and sleet. My college-graduate son would rather work for $7 an hour as an assistant radio and television producer in Los Angeles.

So every year, JBK Landscape hires 45 of its 100 employees through the H-2B guest worker program. Without this program, we couldn't run our $5.2 million business.

Here's how it works: We send an application to the Colorado Department of Labor on Nov. 1. As a condition of approval, we must advertise the jobs in the U.S. and hire anyone who applies. Last year, three guys called, one showed up for an interview, and he lasted two days.

After Colorado and federal Homeland Security officials inspect our application, we meet our workers at the U.S. consulate in Mexico. Officials interview the workers and fine-tooth comb their backgrounds. One guy was denied work because of an unpaid parking ticket. If approved, our laborers travel by chartered bus to Colorado. We set them up in apartments, get them driver's licenses and sign up for Social Security cards. Both employers and workers pay employment taxes.

Sounds like a good system. In fact, we believe it's a model. Only problem-free workers are let in, employers comply with the law, and Americans get first crack at the jobs.

But the H-2B program is capped at 66,000 workers for the entire nation, and the quota gets filled faster each year. The number of workers our government allows into our country should be market-driven, not based on an arbitrary cap. We'd like to see the caps lifted to allow in as many guest workers as needed.

We're angry and disappointed that Congress seems unable to pass comprehensive immigration reform. We still believe it's a national priority. It's frustrating that Republicans - the party traditionally aligned with business and the free market - can't get behind President Bush to create a workable and market-based immigration policy. We must provide the industries that rely on immigrant labor - agriculture, landscaping, hotel and lodging, construction and restaurants - the workers needed or face the consequences.

Both Colorado's and the national economy are at nearly full employment. On top of that, about 9 million to 12 million foreigners are working here illegally. Without more guest workers, how can we possibly fill our jobs? Remember, it's not about the pay: Americans don't want these jobs. But they want hotel rooms, landscaping, new homes and hamburgers at affordable prices.

Something's got to give. The bottom line is that to keep our economy vibrant, Congress needs to allow enough workers to come to this country legally to meet our business needs.

I'd love to hire Jim again. Sometimes I see him around, driving the old truck I sold him so he could start his own landscaping business. Call him the last of a breed. I'm grateful Ricardo still wants the work. He should remind us why the nation needs comprehensive immigration reform.

Mark Kramer owns JBK Landscape in Aurora. He also is a member of the Colorado Employers for Immigration Reform, a coalition formed to advocate a sensible solution to the immigration crisis. COEIR represents businesses that together employ more than 500,000 people and contribute $26 billion annually to the state's economy.

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