It seems the AFL-CIO and the SEIU have made a deal. In the past the SEIU, insane as they are, have promoted illegal labor and the AFL-CIO has been more true to labor economic realities. Now it appears they struck a deal. No increases in guest worker Visas in exchange for amnesty for illegals.

Here are the details of this Faustian bargain:

The nation’s two major labor federations have agreed for the first time to join forces to support an overhaul of the immigration system, leaders of both organizations said on Monday. The accord could give President Obama significant support among unions as he revisits the stormy issue in the midst of the recession.

John Sweeney, president of the A.F.L.-C.I.O., and Joe T. Hansen, a leader of the rival Change to Win federation, will present the outlines of their new position on Tuesday in Washington. In 2007, when Congress last considered comprehensive immigration legislation, the two groups could not agree on a common approach. That legislation failed.

The accord endorses legalizing the status of illegal immigrants already in the United States and opposes any large new program for employers to bring in temporary immigrant workers, officials of both federations said.

“The labor movement will work together to make sure that the White House as well as Congress understand that we speak about immigration reform with one voice,” Mr. Sweeney said in a statement to The New York Times.

But while the compromise repaired one fissure in the coalition that has favored broad immigration legislation, it appeared to open another. An official from the United States Chamber of Commerce said Monday that the business community remained committed to a significant guest-worker program.

The idea now is to create an independent commission to determine future immigration numbers based on the labor market.

Now, that sounds great doesn't it? One small problem. Not only does the DOL have statistics delayed by almost a year in occupational areas, absurd occupational growth protection numbers that never seem to correspond to labor market reality but they do not track on offshore outsourcing. The DOL also mix guest workers into unemployment statistics which gives skewed numbers. So what exactly is this commission going to base it's findings on? Data that is not real time or doesn't exist?

Even worse, immigration is permanent whereas labor markets are more in flux. Another truth is a temporary worker doesn't actually exist. Once here, temporary workers don't actually leave and if they cannot simply get another legal job, many become....tada....illegal.

Then, let's move onto higher education. The rejection rates to even get in are sky high as well as the costs. So what happens when they turn our educational system into a glorified green card machine? The answer is obvious. One will further squeeze out Americans from opportunity and defocus higher education into simply being a backdoor immigration system.

While guest worker Visas are the most notorious method to labor arbitrage, the reality is when one floods the labor supply, that will indeed erode worker rights, wages and increase the unemployment statistics, even in a reasonably growing economy.

Onto the dangerous ground of an independent commission to determine immigration flows. Shame few are talking about the lack of real data. So what happens when this commission tries to obtain raw data, say everyone's immigration status in the country? This would be a critical piece of information to determine labor markets. Can you hear the name calling? Racial profiling, discrimination, racist xenophobe just to obtain the data necessary to determine accurately some labor market truths?