Lots of testimony at immigration hearing…

Here’s a sampling of the testimony offered so far:

Brent Olmstead, lobbyist for the Idaho Business Coalition for Immigration Reform, testified against SB 1303, Sen. Mike Jorgenson’s immigration bill. “The domestic workforce no longer wants to do a lot of these jobs, even with a 10 percent unemployment rate,” Olmstead told the committee. “It is our experience in Idaho that the domestic labor force in Idaho is not applying for manual labor positions.” As a result, employers ranging from agriculture to rock quarries are relying primarily on a foreign-born workforce, Olmstead said, but he said there’s an inadequate federal system for bringing in such guest workers legally. “The federal system is broken,” Olmstead said.

Craig Campbell, a citizen, testified in favor of the bill. He said as a graduate with a master’s degree in forestry, his first job was working in a feed mill for minimum wage. He also noted that when his son was on his first tour in Iraq, more than 1,000 service men and women were naturalized as U.S. citizens while serving there. “That’s service,” he said. Campbell said he’s concerned about the cost to citizens of illegal immigrants. “This is our money as citizens, it’s your money, and we need you to protect us,” he told the senators. “Citizens who want to be citizens are willing to obey the laws and pay the price.”

Will Rainford, speaking for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Boise, spoke out against a “harboring” provision in the lengthy bill, though the sponsors said they now want to remove that part. “It would be offensive to the Catholic Church to suggest that we could only feed the hungry, house the homeless and care for the sick if the person we were helping had the proper documentation,” Rainford told the committee. “This is the least Christian thing we could think of to do. Yet, SB 1303 will render our ministers and volunteers to felony prosecution.”

Ronalee Linsenman, who identified herself as “a taxpayer, a grandmother and a mother,” told the senators, “I believe the illegal immigrants who are here should have to live with consequences just as the citizens who are here have to live with consequences.” She said her mother got cancer and the family lost its home. “Those who are here illegally can present themselves to an emergency room get care and they can leave with no consequence,” she said, saying that’s “what I deem to be an injustice.”