Industries back illegals plan

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Important American industries including top Republican campaign contributors see President Bush's proposal to create a foreign guest-worker program as the best way to address labor shortages in their fields.

Employers from farm and construction work to restaurateurs and Main Street stores say the current system that allows millions of illegal workers to enter the country and work under the table for subminimum wages is not serving businesses or workers well.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, which represents 3 million small businesses across the country, supports the plan as a simple acknowledgment of reality: Despite strict rules against hiring illegal workers, the practice is widespread and growing.

"Our immigration system is broken," said Randel Johnson, a vice president at the Chamber of Commerce. "Our immigration and visa policy must ensure employers are able to fill jobs critical to our economy when American workers are not available."

The plan would allow U.S. employers to fill job openings with qualified workers from other countries if Americans are unwilling to take the jobs. It also would provide temporary work permits to an estimated 8 million undocumented workers already in the country.

Businesses that stand to benefit from tapping into a potentially huge pool of cheap foreign labor are major donors and political activists campaigning for the president, helping him to set fund-raising records early in the 2004 campaign cycle.

Even some businesses that have been caught in the Bush administration's enforcement net for employing undocumented workers, such as Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Tyson Foods Inc., contribute largely to President Bush and Republican causes, though Democrats traditionally have provided the political base of support for immigration-reform legislation.

Mr. Bush and other advocates of such legislation say providing a legal avenue for immigrant labor would enable the government to focus its enforcement efforts on the most pressing threats from abroad: terrorism and illegal drugs.

Underground economy