The top Democrat in the state Senate wants a guest-worker program in Arizona and is looking into creating one.
The move comes amid growing concern over the swelling number of illegal immigrants in Arizona even as the state suffers critical shortages of workers. A guest-worker program would provide Mexican laborers with temporary work visas.
A guest-worker program is “badly needed,” Senate minority leader Marsha Arzberger said. “I don’t want to see our economy hit the cellar.” Arzberger, from Willcox, voted against employer sanctions and has expressed concern about it, particularly with its impact on farmers.
In Arzberger’s view, the discussion of illegal immigration changed after the passage of employer sanctions. Now that Arizona is trying to solve a portion of the problem through the passage of what she called a “punitive law,” she said it is time the state looks at solving the problem of worker shortage by asking Congress to authorize a guest-worker program specifically for Arizona.
That would start with sending a memorial to Congress requesting the authorization. In addition, the state would have to set up the guest-worker structure, Arzberger said.
She said she already is working with a few congressional offices and is planning to meet with Democratic U.S. Rep. Raul Grijalva.
The state could pass a state program contingent on congressional approval, she said.
“My idea to begin with is that it would be possible to get a limited authorization from Congress for, say, a quota of guest-worker visas,” she said. “If the state then constructed and administered a guest-worker program, and Congress would authorize a certain number of visas, then we could have a pilot program for a state, an Arizona-only guest-worker program.”
Now wielding their own immigration laws, Arizona and other states are in a position to tell Washington that since it is not doing anything about the problem, “We are going to,” Arzberger said.
But she said the federal government still needs to tackle the issue.
Her assistant leader, Sen. Jorge Luis Garcia, D-27, said what interests him is comprehensive immigration reform. “When they start doing it piecemeal,” he said, “it doesn’t solve the problem.”
Across the political aisle, reaction to the idea is mixed. Senate Majority Whip John Huppenthal said he doesn’t have a “strong preference” for a guest-worker program although he does not completely dismiss it. There are such programs in Europe, and he does not like some of their effects, he said.
“To me the biggest problem that we have right now is a social balkanization, and right now we aren’t assimilating,” Huppenthal said. “It is clear that these are foreigners in America that are not becoming Americans.”
“We have areas of our community that are like they are being nuclear-bombed by illegal immigrants, and I don’t know that a guest-worker program necessarily addresses that,” he said.
Sen. Karen Johnson, R-18, said she is not totally opposed to a guest-worker program. “But the first thing that we have to do is follow the law and secure the borders. We can’t have a guest-worker program when your borders are wide open,” Johnson, of Mesa, said.
Fountain Hills Rep. John Kavanagh, R-8, said he would support a request that Congress give Arizona a guest-worker program on the condition that the workers’ number and skills are controlled so it does not depress wages or displace workers, and that it’s a “pure guest-worker program and not a Trojan horse with amnesty hidden inside.”