Help Wanted

Several years ago, managers at heavy industrial manufacturer Ingersoll-Rand Co. were looking to hire 60 welders to help build heavy drilling machines in Texas. What they got was a lesson in immigration law. Human-resource managers at the Bermuda-headquartered company scouted the United States for workers, even looking into shipyards to see if they could lure anyone away. But welders aren't as plentiful as they once were. The Army-trained welders of the baby-boom generation are starting to retire and few are taking their place. Apparently, lethal electric currents, high temperatures, and toxic gases just aren't the career draws they used to be.

After several months of intense recruitment, Ingersoll-Rand's search yielded only a handful of U.S. workers. The company did find one ready source of skilled welders; unfortunately, those welders all lived south of the Rio Grande. The welders in Mexico didn't qualify for the small number of visas the government reserves for seasonal laborers. They also lacked college degrees, which meant they were not eligible for the H1-B visas that supply Silicon Valley with its legions of Asian and Russian programmers.

Ultimately, Ingersoll-Rand was forced to go with a smaller team to complete the project. Not surprisingly, the company missed its customer's initial delivery deadline. Says Elizabeth Dickson, Ingersoll-Rand's adviser for immigration services: "There's no legal way for us to bring in workers who don't have a college education, even those who work for us in other countries."

Ingersoll-Rand's managers are not alone in their frustration. A growing number of American employers say that, when it comes to hiring, they're boxed in: they can't find the workers they need in the States and, because of immigration laws, they can't hire enough workers from overseas. The health-care industry, for example, faces a dire shortage of nurses. In response, companies such as Harborside Healthcare, a Boston-based nursing-home operator, are recruiting from abroad. But without an increase in visa quotas, this safety valve won't be enough to prevent a crisis. "Over the next 10 to 15 years, the nurse shortage is one of the single greatest concerns we have," says Harborside CFO Bill Stephan. "If we're going to care for the elderly going forward, at least one part of the answer will have to be a greater flow of immigrants."

The need for foreign-born workers — both legal and otherwise — is creating new, unforeseen headaches for employers. Companies often wait years to get much-needed worker visas, when they can get them at all. Business managers say they are inundated with fraudulent work papers, putting them on the wrong side of the law and, increasingly, the receiving end of class-action lawsuits. What's more, the government has provided no easy — or foolproof — way to know whether potential hires are actually in the country legally.

As a result, many companies — Ingersoll-Rand included — are pushing for a complete overhaul of the nation's immigration system. "This system is very, very broken," says Laura Reiff, a partner with Greenberg Traurig LLP, in Washington, D.C., and co-chair of the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition (EWIC), a business-backed organization. "We need a comprehensive reform bill that will deal with the real economic demand for immigrant labor."

Be Careful What You Wish For
Currently, Congress is debating a number of wide-ranging immigration reforms. Several of the proposals are sympathetic to business concerns. Some include provisions that create "guest worker" programs. One establishes amnesty plans for the nation of illegal immigrants already in the country — now estimated at 11 million people.

A cadre of special-interest groups, though, are lobbying hard for legislation that would staunch the flow of the 500,000 or so undocumented immigrants that make their way into the country each year. The AFL-CIO favors amnesty but opposes the guest-worker program. National-security hawks want harsher laws and stricter workplace enforcement. So do anti-immigration groups such as the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), which advocates, among other things, the construction of a barrier along the entire U.S.-Mexico border. Says Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank that advocates more-restrictive immigration policies, "Change is clearly coming."

Whether this change is good for business remains to be seen. In December, the U.S. House of Representatives passed the Border Protection, Antiterrorism and Illegal Immigration Control Act of 2005 (HR 4437). The legislation, as its name suggests, is heavy on enforcement and light on most everything else. The law provides funds to build 700 miles of wall along the U.S.-Mexico border (assuming, of course, they can find enough masons to do the job). The proposal also would make illegal immigration a felony rather than a civil offense and would stiffen penalties for companies that hire undocumented workers. If caught, businesses could face high fines and possible criminal charges.

That sort of draconian approach would likely spark strong opposition from business leaders. Notes Harborside's Stephan: "It's not realistic to assume that employers can act as tiny detective agencies, screening people on behalf of the government."

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