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Business Week Magazine started a conversation about a hot topic this month.  We link to the first article in a series that will examine immigration issues amid a recession by Moira Herbst.

The Washington Times reported today that on the thorniest of political issues, Obama has embraced the enforcement-first position on immigration that he criticized during last year’s campaign.  He’s now saying that he can’t move forward with the type of comprehensive bill he wants until the voters are convinced that the borders can be enforced.

We quote:  “If the American people don’t feel like you can secure the borders then it’s hard to strike a deal that would get people out of the shadows and on a pathway to citizenship who are already here, because the attitude of the average American is going to be….Well, you’re just going to have hundreds of thousands of more coming in each year.”

The 1st hearing, in a series of hearings to be held, took place on April 30, 2009 in the Senate Subcommittee on Immigration, Border Security and Refugees to address issues surrounding comprehensive reform in the 111th Congress.  The witnesses included former Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan, former INS Commissioner Doris Meissner and reps from the business community, organized labor, religious institutions and anti-immigration groups.  They addressed the topics of unauthorized workers in the USA economy, worksite enforcement against employers and employees and temporary workers, including skilled foreign workers.

The hearings are the latest step in the Senate’s efforts to address coprehensive reform.

…Music to our ears to hear Obama state on his 100th day in office that he was moving “full steam ahead on all fronts” on immigration reform.  He told Telemundo reporter that he hopes to convene working groups to start building a framework for how immigration legislation might be shaped.  He further stated yesterday that Congress and DHS are aligning their priorities to focus on the root causes of undocumented immigration.  Obama stated at his 100th day news conference yesterday:

“We want to move this process.  We can’t continue with a broken immigration system.  It’s not good for anybody.  It’s not good for American workers.  It’s dangerous for Mexican would-be workers to cross a dangerous border.”

We link to articles and videos for more.

There is a new, potential plan in the works for comprehensive immigration reform that could involve a major change in strategy. In a recent report in the LA Times, the CIR bill would look very similar to prior years, but a new independent commission would be created to assess employment-based visa numbers.

The new commission would assess labor and industry data to decide how many foreign workers should be allowed into the country. The system would replace a maze of special temporary worker visas that are granted each year to high-tech specialists, agriculture workers and other foreigners brought into the U.S. by foreign and domestic firms, according to the article.

This potential proposal could cause a disruption among Republicans like John McCain to drop their support for CIR.

For more information on this article:
Read this story from the LA Times

The “Sentosa 10” were given “a clean bill of health” and found new employment in nursing homes and in a hospital after their criminal charges of conspiracy and patient endangerment were dropped, according to their lawyer James Druker.

The 10 nurses, hired while still in the Philippines to work in U.S. nursing homes managed by Sentosa Care, LLC, found working and living conditions different from what they’d been promised, according to the January 13 decision by the New York State Supreme Court’s appellate division. Their
attorney at the time, Felix Vinluan, advised them that, under the circumstances, they could legally resign. After the 10 nurses’ joint resignation, they and Vinluan were prosecuted
(see “An American Dream Gone Wrong,” In the News, August 2007).

For more information on this story and to read the CGFNS News for April 2009:
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