White House
Individuals, businesses, and the economy would benefit from President Obama’s executive order on immigration. So says Quarles & Brady immigration attorney Grant Sovern.
The Madison lawyer notes millions of undocumented immigrants working in the United States without legal authorization would temporarily get that permission under Obama’s action to delay deportation. “And this will be huge for them; it will also be huge for employers who have employees who might have worked there for eight or ten years. The employees have been worried about their own status, the employer may not even know about them.”
Sovern says high-skilled immigrants are needed to fill STEM jobs — science, technology, engineering, and math. He says foreign workers become researchers, engineers and entrepreneurs. They create ideas and jobs that might not otherwise exist. He says giving them a work visa is a “net gain” to every part of the economy.
“In Wisconsin with our great university system we’ve got all sorts of spin-off companies and efforts and researchers who are coming up with great new ideas, but we don’t have an immigration system that supports great new idea companies or individuals.”
Governor Scott Walker and other Republicans want to file a lawsuit to stop Obama’s plan, saying it amounts to amnesty and it’s illegal. In Florida last week during the Republican Governors Association, Walker said he’d take it “to the courts,” which he said is better than a government shutdown.
Milwaukee immigrant rights’ group — the League of United Latin American Citizens — estimates up to 24,000 Wisconsinites are eligible for work permits and protections from being deported.