Thread: Feinstein says we need the workers

http://www.thedesertsun.com/apps/pbcs.d ... /603030318

Feinstein says we need the workers
California senator says 'blue card' plan would protect ag industry

Doug Abrahms and Nicole C. Brambila
The Desert Sun
March 3, 2006

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WASHINGTON - Sen. Dianne Feinstein joined the growing national debate over immigration Thursday, suggesting that legal status be given to as many as 900,000 undocumented agriculture workers.
The plan could benefit thousands of people in the Coachella Valley's $416 million agriculture industry, the largest behind tourism.

It would provide "blue cards" to 300,000 undocumented workers a year, allowing them to work in the agriculture industry while granting them legal residency, the ability to travel and legal status for their immediate families, the California Democrat said.

After three years, those cards could be converted to green cards so workers could switch industries while farmers would gain a steady source of legal labor, she said.

"I've really come to the conclusion that this industry depends on this immigrant labor force," Feinstein said at a Senate Judiciary Committee meeting on immigration legislation. "I call this an earned adjustment for agriculture workers."

Feinstein's announcement comes a day after Mexican President Vicente Fox said the United States will beg for such workers as more American baby boomers retire.

"I am absolutely convinced that by 2010, the United States will have a great demand for workers and laborers to sustain its economy and to sustain its population of retirees and pensioners," Fox said Wednesday.

As it is now, more than 500,000 immigrants cross the U.S.-Mexico border illegally every year.

For years, farmers and workers have pushed for an immigration bill due to the high number of undocumented workers picking grapes, tomatoes and watermelons.


If Yolanda Moreno could create the immigration law, she'd write it with one word: justamente, or justly.
"It's not going to benefit the people who are already here," Moreno said from her Mecca store, Mayra's Tienda, on Thursday.

Moreno, who picks grapes as a seasonal worker in season, described the immigration bills as political. She moved to the United States from Michoacan, Mexico, 17 years ago - without the necessary paperwork.

A fair law, she insisted, would give something to those who have worked, albeit illegally, in the fields for 15 or 20 years.

"The only thing that people want when they come here is a piece of paper," Moreno said in Spanish.

North Shore resident Marta Gutierrez agreed, saying those who work in el campo can't establish themselves by buying a home or property.

Her husband, Francisco, works the tractors, spraying chemicals in the grape fields. He disagreed, saying anything that helps is good.

Growers - especially those with seasonal crops - struggle to get workers, said Suzanne Powell, vice president of Peter Rabbit Farms in Coachella. Her farm has less of a problem because it uses year-round labor, she said.

"I think (immigration reform) should be done piece by piece," Powell said. "Trying to do the whole thing is tough."

But Joe Mota, regional director for the United Farm Workers in Coachella, called on Feinstein to back an immigration bill that growers and laborers have supported. The so-called AgJobs would require undocumented workers to work 100 days a year rather than 150 days as called for in Feinstein's plan.

"For a farmworker to work over 100 days is really pushing it" because of all the travel and down time while waiting for crops to ripen, Mota said. "Why should we put more hoops for farmworkers to jump through?"

Feinstein doesn't support the AgJobs bill because she wants undocumented workers to work longer than one year to gain legal status. Her proposal calls for giving legal status to immigrants after three years.

Focus on immigration

The Senate started work Thursday on landmark immigration legislation to deal with the estimated 11 million undocumented workers who live in the United States to improve border security and to create new guest worker programs.
Lawmakers are divided over many immigrant issues. These include requiring illegal immigrants to return home after several years of working in the United States and what penalties should be imposed on employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers.

"We are approaching a gigantic task," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I have seen virtually no agreement on anything when it comes to this immigration bill."

The single biggest conceptual dispute is over the fate of those undocumented workers now in the United States.

Specter's bill establishes a new "gold card" for undocumented people employed in the United States as of January 2004. This would provide temporary legal residency, but not put the immigrant on a path toward a "green card" providing permanent residency.

Other proposals, including Feinstein's and one backed by groups ranging from the Fresno-based Nisei Farmers League and the United Farm Workers, would go further by enabling undocumented workers to adjust their status and, in time, attain U.S. citizenship without first having to return to their native countries. Opponents call such plans amnesty.

Feinstein said Thursday she wanted to prevent Specter's immigration bill from becoming a new jobs magnet that lures more people to cross the borders illegally. She also warned the committee that the initial bill perhaps addresses too many controversial issues at once.

"This is a huge bill. It is a very costly bill," she said. "It seems to me that (addressing agriculture workers) is the place to start."

Riverside County

The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that of about 1.8 million people living in Riverside County, about 233,000 aren’t citizens. Some have legal status while others do not.

It’s impossible to tally local figures.

The U.S. House and Senate are considering different plans to deal with undocumented residents.

“It certainly doesn’t make sense to reward people who have broken the law,” Rep. Mary Bono said in October. “This is the first time in my over seven years in Congress that Congress is getting very serious about (immigration reform).”
Did you know

There are about 11 million undocumented workers living and working illegally in the United States.

According to the Economic Development Department: In the first quarter of 2005, an average of 3,700 workers were employed by 84 employers in agriculture, forestry, hunting and fishing.

In the second quarter of 2004, a busy time for agriculture, the average number was much higher at at 6,660 workers.

This traitorous broad is up for reelection this year. Californians please contact her and tell her you will be showing her where the unemployment line is in November. We all need to remember all the traitors in November who are tripping all over themselves to see who can enact the biggest amnesty this year. Seek them out, find them, write their names down, memorize them, remember when you go to the polls in November which politican is waging war against the American worker and send them packing. Don't believe their lies and empty rhetoric when they seek reelection. Remember what they have done during their time in office.

Election day will be renamed anti incumbent traitor day.

"We are approaching a gigantic task," said Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee. "I have seen virtually no agreement on anything when it comes to this immigration bill."

This is why we need to work on getting the borders secured FIRST. To tie the two together, when there is obviously little agreement on the guestworker fiasco, is EXTORTION and nothing less. This president has determined that extortion is acceptable tactic to get what he wants.

The border situation is what he WANTS because he thinks it is his leverage to get a guestworker program passed.

DEMAND OUR BORDER BE SECURED NOW!! We can haggle out the rest of it AFTER OUR BORDERS ARE SECURED!!

THANK YOU TO MEXICO FOR CREATING AN EMERGENCY ON THE BORDER - THIS HELPS US NULLIFY BUSH'S EXTORTION DEMANDS.

Originally Posted by dman1200

This traitorous broad is up for reelection this year. Californians please contact her and tell her you will be showing her where the unemployment line is in November.

I don't think so.

As far as I know, she doesn't even have an opponent.

As far as I know, she doesn't even have an opponent.

Another one?

Look don't believe this without verifying it.
Dig and hunt everywhere you can to find an existing opponent. Just because the "opponent" isn't one from one of the two major parties doesn't mean they don't exist. Learn what you can about them now, not November 1. Don't go to the polls blind again. When you get there know what to do. If the candidate you want isn't on the ballot, know how to vote for them anyway. WE can't afford to let these people HAVE these offices that they have proved time and again they don't deserve!

Papers all over the place--even local rags!-- claim that Sylvestre Reyes doesn't have an opponent, either. But he does. A guy named Gordon Strickland will oppose him. I'm not overly fond of the Libertarian Party calling people who who want a fence on the border Xenophobes but I wrote directly to this guy and he seems sincere in this belief that only legal workers should be allowed here and that amnesty isn't an option.

These are some of his words:

I believe we need to overhaul our immigration policy. While that overhaul is in progress we need to follow our existing laws. Illegal immigrants should be deported or jailed and then deported as appropriate under existing law. .....

Immigration reform should be done to benefit America. If we need 1 million Mexican construction workers let's let them in a legal manner. If we don't need lawyers from anywhere let's not let them in from anywhere.

I'm prepared to vote for this guy only because Reyes' record stinks like rotten fish! We have got to send the message to these people that we are all done playing games. Perhaps if we can get enough of them OUT to make an impression, the newbees will realize that we can vote them out next time if they start looking corrupt.

Look for people in your area.

Suggestions:

Find a state page for elections (and learn the state and local election laws)

Google the candidates who appear on the list of contenders
If there is no information, try to e-mail them personally (that is how I got word about two of the people who will oppose two of the people I most want out of office!)

If you like what they have to say, ask what you can do to help. Can you stick a sign in your yard? Can you stand on the corner with their signs? Can you put your name on their petitions to get on the ballot?

We have got to get busy and help spread the word and we can't wait until two days before the elections to do it.

But, please, please, please, people--don't ever assume that any candidate is running unopposed just because it looks like it. The media goes out of their way to keep information from us. We have do to our own digging and our own advertising if that is what it takes.

Don't let them bamboozle us again.

So what would happen to this Ag industry she's so concerned about if they didn't have their slave labor pool?

Has anyone checked out the good Senator's domestic staff and yard company? Where is the Watchdog?

Former California State Senator Dick Mountjoy is a Republican candidate for US Senate from California. Mountjoy is opposed to amnesty for illegal aliens. "In 1994, Dick Mountjoy introduced and qualified Prop. 187 for the November ballot - an initiative to stop benefits to illegal aliens. It passed with an overwhelming 60% of the vote."

http://www.mountjoyforsenate.com/home.php
http://www.mountjoyforsenate.com/issues.htm
http://www.mountjoyforsenate.com/about.htm

Originally Posted by CountFloyd

Originally Posted by dman1200

This traitorous broad is up for reelection this year. Californians please contact her and tell her you will be showing her where the unemployment line is in November.

I don't think so.

As far as I know, she doesn't even have an opponent.

So what? Write someone in when you go to the polls. Don't just let her have the seat. Write yourself in, but don't just give in and say oh she's unopposed so all is lost. Oh and some of the other suggestions are good too. We need to stand up to these elitest and let them know that they aren't going to get away with their treason without a fight. Write someone in if you have to. It's happened before in a local election somewhere. I can't remember where, but I remember hearing that there was 2 candidates running for a local election and the person who won wasn't even on the ballot and wasn't even running for the position and didn't even spend 5 seconds campaigning. In fact he was shocked he won and didn't find out about it until the next day. I don't remember if he accepted the spot, but I do remember hearing about it and anything can happen if we put our minds to it, no matter how impossible it seems.

Originally Posted by patbrunz

So what would happen to this Ag industry she's so concerned about if they didn't have their slave labor pool?

It would mean that they would be forced to hire an American or a legal immigrant at a more fair wage. BOOHOO for them.