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  1. #1
    Senior Member Brian503a's Avatar
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    Are farm workers scared off by immigration law?

    http://www.standardspeaker.com/index.ph ... 8&Itemid=2

    Are farm workers scared off by immigration law?
    Sunday, 30 July 2006
    By ALAN GREGORY
    alangregory@standardspeaker.com
    The farm has long hired dozens of migrant laborers to bring in the crop.
    But this year’s different.

    One local grower won’t go on the record with his feelings out of fear that he might lose even the few workers he’s been able to sign on so far this growing season.

    And he’s afraid that laws like Hazleton’s Illegal Immigration Relief Act is responsible.

    The laws’ backlash is spooking away immigrants who’ve previously worked as farm laborers, he believes.

    Leonard Burger, a grower and vegetable retailer in the Nescopeck Creek Valley, doesn’t hire any migrant laborers. His farm’s not big enough. But he has empathy with those growers who do.

    “It could be a problem,” he said of Hazleton’s ordinance and measures like it.

    Consumers have to understand, he said, that someone picks and prepares for shipping the vegetables they purchase at groceries and other markets.

    And in the United States, migrant laborers, especially on farms of any appreciable size, do much of the often-backbreaking work of hand-harvesting produce.

    It’s an issue that arose in testimony to the state House Republican Policy Committee at its hearing Wednesday in suburban Allentown.

    “The farm families of Pennsylvania believe that our immigration laws should be strictly enforced and that our borders should be respected, but farmers also need an adequate and reliable workforce to harvest their crops,” Gary Swan, director of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau’s governmental affairs and communications division, told the committee at its hearing in Whitehall Township.

    “Those who rely on foreign workers have been doing their best to employ legal immigrants. While farmers ask for documentation, the documents may not be valid, and like all employers, they are prohibited from asking certain questions,” Swan said.

    The Farm Bureau, in a news release, said the “economic impact on Pennsylvania agriculture could be staggering if enforcement-only legislation is approved at the national or state levels.”

    Farm Bureau officials believe Pennsylvania fruit and vegetable growers “face production losses between $97 million and $175 million annually without guest workers to help them tend to and harvest their crops.”

    In addition, Swan said, “Because one out of every seven jobs in Pennsylvania is generated by agricultural production, the impact would reach well beyond farms.

    “Neither Pennsylvania nor our country will be safer if closing our borders or taking only enforcement actions result in the sending of our food production to foreign lands. As with our energy supply, we’ve learned the lessons of relying upon other places for our essential needs.”

    Hazleton’s ordinance – city council approved it on a 4-1 vote – sets up a permitting process for individuals choosing to rent apartments. It also punishes employers who hire illegal immigrants and landlords who rent to them while making English the city’s official language.

    Swan said the authority to enact laws helping farmers deal with the illegal immigrant issue mostly belongs to the federal government.

    “Like you, Pennsylvania’s farm families are frustrated with Washington’s slow progress and failure so far to adopt and implement appropriate remedies,” he told the committee Wednesday.

    “Meanwhile, as you consider actions at the state level to address illegal immigration, we respectfully ask that care be taken to avoid unintended consequences for Pennsylvania’s farm and food sectors.”

    Swan, in his prepared statement, discussed the plight of a Columbia County-based vegetable grower who markets produce through local grocery store chains.

    “He historically hires between 50 and 60 laborers each year to harvest his squash, cucumbers, cabbage and other produce. So far as he knows, the documents he routinely collects from these workers are legitimate,” he said.

    Since last November, though, the farmer’s labor supply has dried up.
    Swan said the farmer pays a starting wage of $6.50 per hour with “piece-rate incentives for productivity in harvesting. Most laborers have traditionally made an average well over $10 per hour. He also provides housing for his workers.”

    He said the crew that committed to working for the farmer had planned to travel to Pennsylvania after the orange-harvesting season in Florida. But a shortage of farm laborers in the South meant that the crew was able to stay in place.

    “Couple the Florida agricultural labor shortages with all the controversy about immigrant workers – including a recent national spotlight on Pennsylvania – and one can begin to understand how this vegetable grower is in a troubling situation,” Swan said.

    The Columbia County grower is fielding a makeshift crew of neighbors “and a few others” in place of the migrant crew, Swan said.

    “Last year, this vegetable grower suffered a major economic loss as a result of drought. This year, he is already suffering a more devastating loss because his crops are literally rotting in the field.

    “This college-educated young farmer with a family may be able to lose money for a few days or even a few weeks. But if he is unable to find a supply of labor for the remainder of the harvest season, the future of his farm enterprise will be very bleak.”

    Arthur N. Read appeared before the committee on behalf of a Kennett Square-based farmworker support committee.

    He told the panel that the organization “supports immigration reform which includes a process leading to legalization of undocumented immigrants presently in this country.”

    Read said, “The labeling of this issue involving ‘illegal immigration’ or ‘illegal immigrants’ is not productive or helpful to addressing these issues. Those immigrant, migrant and ‘temporary’ foreign-born workers who our organizations work with are uniformly hard-working and productive individuals seeking to support themselves and their families.

    “Many industries in Pennsylvania, including agriculture, landscaping and the food processing industry, depend upon such individuals for a significant percentage of their workforce.”

    He also said that it’s unrealistic to expect a positive outcome by penalizing employers for hiring “undocumented” foreign-born workers while millions of such workers remain in the country.

    “While many mainstream employers may indeed terminate or refuse to utilize such workers and experience a labor shortage, it is likely that less scrupulous subcontractors or intermediary suppliers of ‘temporary’ labor will utilize such ‘undocumented’ workers on terms that will exploit their ‘illegal’ status.”

    According to Read, the farmworker support committee, Comite de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agricolas, or CATA, was forced in 1995 to file complaints against Kennett Square when the borough began utilizing zoning and building codes in order to discourage Mexican men working in mushroom-growing facilities in Chester County from sharing apartments in the borough.
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  2. #2
    Senior Member sippy's Avatar
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    “Those who rely on foreign workers have been doing their best to employ legal immigrants. While farmers ask for documentation, the documents may not be valid, and like all employers, they are prohibited from asking certain questions,” Swan said.
    If the employers are at risk from fines, penalties, and criminal charges from ICE for hiring illegal immigrants, then why are employers not allowed to ask certain questions?

    We need a better system, and we need it fast.
    "Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting the same results is the definition of insanity. " Albert Einstein.

  3. #3
    Senior Member gofer's Avatar
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    Ask the questions!!! What are they gonna do....run to the feds and report you?? With all the laws being broken, what do they care about a few questions?? The point is, THEY DON'T WANT TO KNOW!

  4. #4
    Senior Member WavTek's Avatar
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    Swan said the authority to enact laws helping farmers deal with the illegal immigrant issue mostly belongs to the federal government.
    Anytime you hear a business owner use this arguement, you know they're using illegal alien labor and don't the gravy train to end.
    REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER!

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