Immigrant, union groups see Labor nominee as ally

President-elect Barack Obama on Friday offered a bridge between business, labor and community advocates when he announced he is nominating the daughter of immigrant workers to head the Labor Department.

Rep. Hilda Solis, D-Calif., whose Mexico-born father was a Teamsters union steward and whose mother came from Nicaragua, has championed labor and immigration causes during her four terms in Congress.

While business groups are wary of Solis' support of labor priorities like "card check" legislation, which would make it easier to form a union, they said immigration could be an area of common ground.

"Immigration might be an area we can work with her on," said Randel Johnson, vice president for immigration and labor at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.

Latino community advocates praised the nomination of Solis, the third Hispanic official to be named to Obama's Cabinet, following Sen. Ken Salazar of Colorado to head Interior and New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson to lead Commerce. They were also optimistic about her potential impact on the immigration debate.

"She's going to be very well versed in this area, so we know she'll be very mindful of the labor concerns that we always have when it comes to retaliation, when it comes to protections of migrant workers," said John Amaya, a legislative attorney with the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund.

Eliseo Medina, executive vice president at the Service Employees International Union and a former farm worker, said Solis' personal experience will help orient Labor toward immigration concerns.

"For the first time we are going to have someone that will be advocating not only ... the public safety of workers, but also that immigration reform is an integral part of that," he said.

In the past, labor unions have been reluctant to push for a boost in the number of temporary visas for guest workers. Earlier this year, some lawmakers backed an unsuccessful bill to effectively raise the number of H-2B temporary visas for nonagricultural guest workers. Capped at 66,000, this year's allotment ran out within weeks.

"People are really going to have to really, really dig deep on it when it comes to the kinds of visas that we're looking at, the kinds of labor protections that we're going to be asking for, and certainly the number of visas that business and labor want, versus those that we want," Amaya said.

Still, the most controversial issue is how to deal with the 12 million undocumented workers in the United States. "Some of the advocates out there think they can push through a legalization bill without a temporary worker program," said the Chamber's Johnson. He added that business opposition to such legislation could derail such legislation. Congress could deal with some less controversial immigration-related issues separately from comprehensive reform.

A bill to overhaul the H2-A farm-worker visa program and provide temporary farm workers with a path to legal status could be combined with legislation allowing college graduates to obtain green cards, Johnson said. The Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors Act failed in the Senate last year.