A new poll suggests a majority of South Dakotans favors immigration reform in Washington. Among the results, 83 percent of people surveyed say it’s important that the U.S. fix its immigration system this year.
In the early June survey, nearly three-quarters of South Dakotans polled say they support reform that contains a "tough but fair" path to citizenship.
Juan Bonilla is a local businessman and president of the Sioux Falls Diversity Council. He says a path to citizenship that requires immigrants pay fees, pass background checks and complete language proficiency allows undocumented people already living in America to show their commitment to the United States.
"We don’t want here people of our Latino community that have criminal or they violate laws here," Bonilla says. "We want the hard workers and good people in the United States."
Bonilla estimates about one percent of South Dakota’s Latinos are here illegally. That’s out of 22,000 Latinos living in the state.
Kent Alberty co-owns a staffing business in Sioux Falls. Alberty says the state’s low unemployment is good, but it can hurt production if companies can’t find qualified people to fill jobs.
"What we need is low unemployment with a steady stream of new workers prepared to fill in where needed when companies expand; however, in order to hit this economic sweet spot, we just simply must completely modernize a broken immigration system," Alberty says.
Alberty says South Dakota simply can’t produce enough skilled workers to fill the needs of growing businesses.
Alberty says operations such as dairy farms aren’t compatible with the current guest worker regulations because the program allows seasonal immigrant workers. The dairy industry needs workers year-round.
The telephone poll on immigration reform screened 593 South Dakotans. More than half responded they were Republicans. The margin of error for the poll is 4 percent.