By Julian Paras, The Paper. — United States Representative Gabe Vasquez visited a workforce development site in Albuquerque’s South Valley on Wednesday to announced that he has introduced a bill designed to create more opportunities for qualified caregivers in New Mexico. According to him, it’s becoming a growing concern, and could turn into a serious problem if it’s not addressed now.
H.R. 9234, The Careworker Visa Act, will help address the shortage of careworkers for senior citizens and children, Vasquez says, by providing immigrant work visas to immigrants with qualified backgrounds to help fill the gap. Vasquez, a Democrat, represents Albuquerque’s Westside and most of Southern New Mexico in Congress.
“We know that families take care of each other,” Vasquez said Wednesday during a press conference at the Social Enterprise Center in the South Valley. “But finding qualified help can be difficult, and increasingly, it can be unaffordable.”
The bill would create a three-year work window for these careworkers who would be issued a “W visa,” according to background on the bill shared by Vasquez’s office. As written, it would open up 100,000 careworker visa opportunities annually.
Vasquez was also joined by The New Mexico Immigration Law Center and local childcare workers to hammer home the importance of this bill.
Victor Hernandez, a policy leader at NMILC, said Wednesday “The truth is that immigrant workers have long been the backbone of our caregiving workforce. Yet our immigration system has failed to provide them with the pathways and protections they deserve.”
Vasquez emphasized that if these jobs are not given more attention to be filled, there could be approximately 4.6 million empty caretaker jobs by 2032.
When asked about the prospects of this bill involving immigration winning support from Republican leaders and the White House, his office provided a statement:
Rep. Vasquez’s newly introduced Careworker Visa Act is part of his New American Immigration Plan, a commonsense plan to move past both parties’ failures on immigration to secure the border, boost the U.S. economy, and expand legal pathways in a humane, cost-effective way.
The Congressman knows New Mexicans are tired of both parties’ failures on immigration and are eager for commonsense solutions — rather than just complaints and stalled action. That’s why he is helping the country chart a path forward on this issue, using his experience as someone who has spent most of his life along the border to proactively provide practical solutions like this bill.