Where Have All the Busboys Gone?

Though the U.S. is no longer a nation of immigrants, the continuing influx of foreigners--1,600,000 in the past five years--still plays a considerable part in shaping the country's social, intellectual and economic life. The nation's highly technical economy needs relatively few immigrant laborers; as rising unemployment indicates, there is not enough work for unskilled Americans. But with industry's chronic shortage of specialists, foreigners who have skills are in demand. The 1952 McCarran-Walter Act, which tied quotas to the national and racial elements already in the U.S., arbitrarily barred great numbers of blacks, Orientals and Southern Europeans, no matter what their skills. To right that inequity, and to satisfy the changing job needs of the economy, Congress in 1965 passed a law that in most cases admits immigrants on the basis of their skills or close relationship to U.S. citizens. For all its good intentions, the law has made it even tougher for many foreigners--even those equipped with special skills--to enter the U.S.

Last week the House Judiciary Committee heard testimony from representatives of Gillette, IBM, Procter & Gamble and other firms in favor of several bills that would sidestep the law by allowing aliens on temporary visas to hold permanent jobs. At present, most visa holders cannot remain in the U.S. for more than 18 months. This week representatives of organized labor will appear before the committee to argue against the bills. Another joint Senate-House bill aimed at correcting some of the law's more obvious flaws will be introduced this week by Senator Edward Kennedy and Ohio Congressman Michael A. Feighan.

Call for Guides. The present law has a special twist for Latin Americans and Canadians. For the first time, it set a limit on their immigration (120,000 a year), but it established no job-preference guides. The quota has been oversubscribed, and more than half the applicants are domestics and other unskilled workers. One result: Canadian firms and U.S. companies doing business in Canada can no longer transfer personnel to the U.S. for training or new assignments without a long wait. The Kennedy-Feighan bill would create a preference system favoring those with skills and management ability. This would put a tight limit on domestics and doubtless raise a howl from housewives already complaining about the overly bureaucratic difficulties of importing live-in maids.

Congress did provide specific job criteria--along with an annual quota of 170,000--for countries outside the Western Hemisphere. The law gives first call to spouses and unmarried children of U.S. citizens. So many of them applied from certain countries, mainly Italy and the Philippines, that skilled workers were left on a 17-month waiting list. The new bill would relieve the pressure by lowering the percentage of relatives admitted, creating more openings for workers with special abilities.

Help Wanted. A particularly touchy element in the present law is the power that it gives the Department of Labor to determine what skills entitle a foreigner to an immigration permit. The department has long been sympathetic to U.S. unions' fear of foreign workers. Only specialists--nuclear engineers, coppersmiths, watchmakers--and immigrants with occupations in short supply can get the department's approval. The department has compiled a list of 40 unskilled occupations known as Schedule B --busboys. taxi drivers, porters--that are banned. Ireland, with its largely unskilled population, has been among the hardest hit under this arrangement. Irish immigration to the U.S. is down to 500 people annually, compared with 7,000 a few years ago.

Congressional critics, mainly of Irish descent, argue that the Labor Department is overzealous in administering Schedule B. Congressman Feighan notes that newspapers are constantly running want ads for types of workers banned by the department. He has introduced a separate bill that would scrap the nationwide ban on Schedule B workers and permit them to enter local markets, where they are needed.

There are more than 100 bills now before Congress that would bend, twist or scrap the present law, many introduced by legislators with special interests in mind. One bill would gain quota exemptions for 7,500 tailors, and another would open the door to 5,000 Sicilians. In a particularly deft political balancing act, Manhattan Congressman William F. Ryan has introduced two bills --one would admit more Irishmen, the other would bring in 3,000 Iraqi Jews.

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