The Business Council of Alabama has signed a U.S. Chamber of Commerce letter that urges the U.S. House of Representatives to tackle immigration reform. The Chamber said that the U.S. Senate immigration reform legislation may not pass in the House “but that doesn’t mean all is lost.”
“As Congress prepares for its August recess, we are joining others to communicate to the U.S. House of Representatives the importance of moving forward with immigration reform,” the Chamber said. “There is no question that the U.S. immigration system is broken. Our current system is not serving the interests of our economy, businesses, or our society.”
The U.S. Chamber seeks signatories to a multi-industry letter to the House. During Senate debate over an immigration bill, many Chambers of Commerce supported the U.S. Chamber’s two immigration reform support letters sent to senators.
The BCA seeks immigration reform to strengthen our national security, including increased protection of our borders, while providing a supplemental workforce for American business and industry.
The BCA also supports simplifying and expanding caps in the H2B program to help offset growing workforce shortages in various U.S. economic sectors and in Alabama’s economy in particular wherein there are no qualified Americans willing and able to take positions and that temporary workers must intend to return to their homelands once their visas expire.
The BCA is Alabama’s exclusive affiliate to the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the National Association of Manufacturers. Alabama’s foremost voice for business, the BCA is a non-partisan statewide business association representing the interests and concerns of nearly 1 million working Alabamians through its member companies and its partnership with the Chamber of Commerce Association of Alabama.
The deadline to sign the letter of support is the close of business on Thursday. For information and to sign-on contact David Alim at dalim@uschamber.com.
-Dana Beyerle
Here is the text of the multi-industry letter:
The Honorable John Boehner
Speaker
The Honorable Nancy Pelosi
Democratic Leader
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515
Dear Mr. Speaker and Leader Pelosi:
The undersigned organizations urge the United States Congress to enact legislation that would bring meaningful reforms to critical components of our nation’s immigration system. Reform of an outdated, broken immigration system is essential if we are to achieve a fully revitalized economy that provides rewarding and lasting jobs and opportunities for all Americans.
Thought leaders from across the ideological spectrum agree that enacting immigration reform now will accelerate U.S. economic growth at a critical time when it has struggled to recover, and will help to enable sustained growth for decades to come. Done right, reform will also serve to protect and complement our U.S. workforce, generating greater productivity and economic activity that will lead to new innovations, products, businesses, and jobs in communities across the U.S.
We deal with an immigration system that is now in its third decade and completely incapable of being responsive to an ever-changing national economy and hyper-competitive global marketplace. Today, the problems with our immigration system have grown and multiplied to become an emerging threat to the current and future productivity, ingenuity, and competitiveness of key sectors of our economy, including agriculture, housing, manufacturing, tourism, engineering, and technology.
We are united in the belief that we can and must do better for our economy and country by modernizing our immigration system. We already have been engaged with many members of Congress — Republicans and Democrats — on numerous components of a modern immigration system, and we urge that you not let this momentum slip and progress vanish.
Failure to act is not an option. We can’t afford to be content and watch a generation-old immigration system work more and more against our overall national interest. Instead, we urge Congress to remain mindful of the clear benefits to our economy if we succeed, and work together and with us to achieve real, pro-growth immigration reform.