H-2B Mentioned at CNN/YouTube Republican Debate

Last night during the CNN/YouTube Republican presidential debate small-business owner Jack Brooks called on the candidates to address Congress’s failure to pass a seasonal guest-worker bill and comprehensive immigration reform.

Brooks’ Cambridge, Mass.-based seafood-processing company, which uses the federal H-2B non-immigrant visa program to fulfill its seasonal staffing needs, faces many of the same challenges that landscape firms using the H-2B program face. Congress neglected to pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill this summer and still has not passed an H-2B returning-worker exemption, which means as of this time only 66,000 seasonal guest workers will be permitted into the U.S. during fiscal year 2008.

Brooks said: “Hammered by competition with imports, our family-owned business struggles each year to find seasonal workers. We've been working with the seasonal guest-worker program, the H2B program, bringing in and sending home workers every year. What are you going to do to keep these guest workers coming to the US to save our business?”

CNN’s Anderson Cooper posed the question to Colorado Congressman Tom Tancredo, who neglected to address the H-2B visa program directly or its users’ seasonal needs.

After Tancredo first misunderstood the question, assuming Brooks asked how he would stop guest workers from coming to the U.S., Cooper redirected the candidate to the topic at hand. “This small business needs guest workers,” he said.

“I’m not going to aid any more immigration into this county, because in fact… massive immigration, both legal and illegal, does a couple of things. One of it is, makes it difficult for us to assimilate. The other thing is that it does take jobs… I reject the idea, categorically, that there are jobs that, quote, ‘No American will take,’” Tancredo said.

“…Am I going to feel sorry if a business has to increase its wages in order for somebody in this country to make a good living? No, I don’t feel sorry about that and I won’t apologize for it for a moment. And there are plenty of Americans who will do those jobs.”

Related links:

Brooks' entry on YouTube

CNN.com readers' reactions to Tancredo's response

Transcript of the  Nov. 28 CNN/YouTube Republican presidential debate