Eyeing the debates - Westfair Communications

As the Connecticut gubernatorial campaign heats up heading into the fall, immigration could reemerge as an issue given this summer”™s federal showdown in Arizona over that state”™s attempt to enact tough new immigration laws. In addition, Danbury Mayor Mark Boughton is campaigning for lieutenant governor of Connecticut, two years after Danbury dominated national headlines by agreeing to work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to ferret out illegal immigrants.

In 2008, the number of immigrants obtaining legal permanent resident status in Connecticut totaled nearly 12,200, according to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security. DHS statistics show that was down from nearly 13,000 the year before and a whopping 18,700 at the height of the last economic cycle in 2006.

In 2008, close to 232,000 foreigners visited Connecticut for temporary stays, whether for business, school, family visits or tourism, an increase of 5,000 visitors from 2007.

Employers, both those that rely on minimum-wage immigrant workers as well as those who recruit expensive engineers from overseas, are carefully watching the outcome of the debate.

Antiquated laws make it difficult for employers in Connecticut and elsewhere to hire foreign workers, said Laura Jasinsky, principal of Stamford-based Jasinsky Immigration Law P.C. She thinks that contributed to a work-force shortage in the most recent economic boom, a shortage which may have actually contributed to the subsequent deterioration of the economy in the recession.

“The immigration quotas, for example, (have been) very small and have never increased since 1990, despite the fact you had business ”¦ expanding over the years,” Jasinsky said. “The other thing that has always bugged me is the work visas are very restrictive.”

As of June 30, bills similar to Arizona”™s had been introduced in five states including Rhode Island, according to the National Conference of State Legislatures. NCLS added that legislatures nationally enacted more than 300 laws and resolutions in the first half, up more than 20 percent from the same period a year earlier, though Texas and several other states were not in regular session in 2010. Employment law accounted for little of the increase, with many of the laws fine-tuning technical details of previous acts.

“After Arizona passed a similar law, employers were reluctant to hire people who looked or sounded foreign because they did not want to run the risk of penalties,” said Paul Filson, director of Service Employees International Union”™s Connecticut office, testifying last spring in Hartford.

State Sen. Michael McLachlan of Danbury spent his first term promoting bills ”“ unsuccessfully ”“ that would have required Connecticut employers to use the U.S. Bureau of Citizenship and Immigration Services”™ E-Verify Internet application to check on a worker”™s eligibility to work in the U.S. And the Connecticut Office of Legislative Research recently published a comprehensive review of immigration laws in Arizona and nationally, a possible prelude to a renewed legislative push on the issue in the coming session next January.

Any debate on the issue this fall in Connecticut will likely revolve around McLachlan”™s fellow Danbury Republican Boughton, who spends a significant portion of his campaign video touting his accessibility to all residents there ”“ and an anecdote of the day when an immigrant student gave an oral history in his class of her own journey to America, helping inform his own views on the topic of immigration.

“This young lady had actually been through the ”˜killing fields”™ in Cambodia, and she told this story about how they had to walk across the border and how she made it to the refugee camp as an 11-year-old little girl,” Boughton said. “(She) ended up in Danbury; was educated in Danbury public schools and now is a doctor somewhere in south Florida. I still get emails from her today. The day she told that story to the rest of us our jaws were on the ground.”