Chamber Laments Senate Delay on Immigration Reform

Calls on Leaders to Regroup and Reconsider

WASHINGTON, DC—The U.S. Chamber of Commerce today expressed its disappointment over the withdrawal of S. 1348, the "Secure Borders, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Reform Act of 2007" and the subsequent delays in achieving comprehensive immigration reform for the nation.

"Clearly, the bill took some serious body blows this week, some life-threatening, but like Mark Twain said, 'The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.' The Immigration reform bill is more like on life-support in the ICU, but not quite dead yet," said Bruce Josten, the Chamber's executive vice president of government affairs.

"We still think that the window has not closed on the opportunity to address this critical issue. American citizens and American businesses need to have confidence that there is a clear practical plan in place to address the need to fix our dysfunctional immigration laws. The current system is clearly broken and states are naturally reacting to the lack of action at the federal level with a patchwork of immigration laws and enforcement—exposing employers who must deal with a broken legal structure to unfair liability. The status quo is clearly unacceptable.

"The bill before the Senate, while far from perfect, contained the contours of a sound compromise to achieve comprehensive immigration reform: increased border security; a path to recruit future workers needed from abroad when there are not enough U.S. workers available; a mechanism for undocumented workers to earn legal status; and a new employment verification system. The Chamber has concerns with the details of several of these provisions, but we were hopeful that many of those issues could be ironed out in the House and in conference if the Senate had just taken the step of moving forward last night," Josten said.

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is the world's largest business federation representing more than 3 million businesses and organizations of every size, sector, and region.

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