Business Leaders Push For Immigration Reform On D.C. Trip

Business leaders from Arkansas flew to Washington on Tuesday to ask members of the Arkansas House delegation to support immigration reform.

The U.S. Senate passed a comprehensive reform measure earlier this summer, but House members have advocated a piecemeal approach to remedying concerns regarding border security, documentation guidelines, and visa reform for knowledge-based industries.

Peter Urban with Stephens’ Media reports:

“We are here to advocate for immigration reform — that they (members) express to House leadership that the issue should be brought to the floor for debate,” said Andrew Parker, governmental affairs director for the Arkansas State Chamber of Commerce-Associated Industries of Arkansas.

Parker, Arkansas Farm Bureau lobbyist Jeffery Hall, state Rep. Mark Lowery, R-Maumelle, and a handful of Arkansas businessmen joined hundreds of other pro-immigration conservatives from around the country to urge the House to take up immigration reform.

Hall said immigration reform should not be delayed. Arkansas farmers, he said, need a guest worker program that will allow them to fill the jobs they have in both eastern and western Arkansas.

“It’s really an issue of simple math,” said Joe Carter, chief executive officer of Snyder Environmental in Little Rock. “In order for the United States to grow our population has to grow, the number of willing workers has to grow and the number of consumers within the U.S. border has to grow.”

You can read his full report here.