Immigration Weekly Round-Up: Chamber of Commerce Pushes Immigration Reform; COVID-19 Spikes in Immigration Detention; Supreme Court Considers Indefinite Immigration Detention
Friday, January 14, 2022
United States Chamber of Commerce CEO Calls for Doubling Legal Immigration
This week, Suzanne Clark, the CEO of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, advocated for the federal government to double the size of legal immigration into the country in order to address widespread worker shortages. During the Chamber’s annual State of American Business address, Ms. Clark also asked for legal relief for undocumented immigrants brought to the United States as children, familiarly known as “Dreamers.” Ms. Clark emphasized that “we must create a permanent solution for the ‘Dreamers,’ those young men and women who know no other home and who contribute to their communities, but whose legal status is in limbo.”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is not the only organization advocating for updates to old immigration laws that have restricted economic growth. Several executives in the hospitality industry sent a letter to both President Biden and Congress stating that “we are struggling to find workers and are shutting down our businesses or cutting back on hours of operation because we can’t find waiters, cooks, housekeepers, managers, and people of all skill levels to hire, despite providing good pay, benefits, bonuses, and other incentives.” Many business leaders support a plan proposed by congressional Democrats to offer lawful status to millions of undocumented immigrants currently residing in the country, as well as significantly reduce backlogs for those applying for immigration relief, many of whom have been waiting several years, or even decades, to gain status in the U.S.
https://www.natlawreview.com/article/immigration-weekly-round-chamber-commerce-pushes-immigration-reform-covid-19-spikes
