Ag worker bill revived after defeat of immigration reform
By Laura Layden

Saturday, July 21, 2007

Though a comprehensive immigration bill has failed in Congress, supporters aren’t giving up on legislation that could legalize more than a million farmworkers in the United States.

The legislation, known as AgJobs, was included in the sweeping reform bill that suffered a crushing defeat last month.

Backers are searching for ways to breathe new life into the agricultural program they say is needed to deal with worker shortages that have left crops unpicked and rotting in fields.

For more than seven years, supporters have pushed AgJobs, short for the Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits and Security Act, as a way to provide a more stable, secure and safe work force for the U.S. agriculture industry. It would overhaul the H-2A guest worker program and give experienced farmworkers the chance to become legal residents in this country.

Under the program, undocumented workers could earn legal status if they show they’ve worked in U.S. agriculture for at least 150 days during the past two years. It would be capped at 1.5 million workers.

There has been talk of attaching AgJobs to the 2007 Farm Bill, which sets the nation’s agriculture policy.

“That is one of the options that is being looked at. It certainly is not the only one — and I’m not sure I would characterize it as the prime option,â€