This just in: Nonstop coverage of the Swift-Kelce affair has officially been supplanted by a new media infatuation. Too bad it’s the battle raging on Capitol Hill over how to handle the waves of migrants swarming our borders. With less coverage, maybe the restaurant industry wouldn’t have to be reminded of what it could and probably will lose in the melee.
Unless you’re just thawing out from being frozen in a glacier, you’re likely aware that factions from both political parties have proposed radical changes in the way migrants seeking asylum in the U.S. would be handled. The details are spelled out in mind-numbing legalese within a tome of a bill, with 370 pages in total.
The ones with the most relevance to restaurants are likely the four or five that deal with changes in the employability of new arrivals. They are indeed significant. Asylum-seekers adjudged to have been truly in danger within their country of origin would be okayed to work legally in the U.S. immediately.
The bill that’s turned lawmakers rabid would require that at least 1,800 asylum applications be handled daily. The number can’t go any higher than 8,500 on any given day or the admittance process automatically shuts down. Ditto for any point where the daily average for the preceding seven days exceeds 5,000 requests.
Even if only half the requests were granted, about another 75,000 more potential hires would enter the U.S. workforce per month. That’s roughly as many people as restaurants and bars hired in total between July and December of last year.
Other provisions of the supplemental spending bill would raise the number of workforce candidates by okaying the employment of children and other relatives of migrants who are already working legally within the U.S.
In short, the measure would not be the silver bullet that ended the industry’s longstanding labor challenges. But it likely would be an appreciable help.
But don’t get excited by the prospects. There seems to be a contest underway in Congress to see which supposed statesmen can scream his or her opposition to the bill in the shrillest, loudest voice. Oddly, some of the frontrunners are the same lawmakers who helped draft the proposal.
Of course, they are beholden to constituents. Maybe a little yelling from the industry wouldn’t be a bad thing.