Thread: CO: Farm Workers Dwindle As Deportation Fears Climb

Farm Workers Dwindle As Deportation Fears Climb
Legal, Migrant Workers Scared Away, Farmers Say

POSTED: 7:56 pm MDT August 13, 2007
UPDATED: 8:21 pm MDT August 13, 2007


BRIGHTON, Colo. -- Many Colorado farmers depend on migrant workers to help work the crops but the recent immigration crackdown is causing a major shortage of help.

It's harvest time but Sakata Farms in Brighton is having to manage with about 60 fewer workers than usual. With immigration such a hot-button issue, even legal workers are scared away from the fields.

Fewer workers means production for Sakata Farms is down by about 20 percent.

"We've been hiring locally but the turnover has been terrible, part-time people and so forth," said Bob Sakata, owner of Sakata Farms.

His cabbage field is littered with weeds because he doesn't have enough workers to control them and he's had to reduce his acreage.

Sakata, whose 3,000-acre farm has been in operation for 60 years, said he's feeling the pinch. Fears over deportation couldn't come at a worst time for him, he said.

"This is the peak. Our operation is going on around the clock to try and keep things going," he said.

Farmers say machines can only take up some of the slack. Many specialty crops have to be harvested by hand.

Sakata thinks that one solution would be the guest worker program, similar to the program that the U.S. had in the 60s and 70s.

"All we need is workers for maybe three months. That supports the whole operation and we'll get them legally from Mexico or wherever and after three months, they go back home," Sakata said.

He said that as he remembers it, the program worked great several decades ago and the workers were happy to go home to see their families after three months of arduous work in the sun.

A government program to help farmers hasn't worked either, Sakata said. The program was supposed to provide him with workers to help offset the declining migrant workforce but after he filled a mountain of paperwork, he sent it in and was told to redo it, he said.

Officials promised him that workers were coming by June 20 but none ever arrived and he had to move on, Sakata said.

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/news/13 ... etail.html

HEY SAKATA FARMS: FIRST, YOU ARE LUCKY YOU ARE NOT GOING TO PRISON FOR RUNNING A BUSINESS THAT DEPENDS ON BREAKING THE LAW. SECOND, WE DONT REALLY CARE IF YOU GO OUT OF BUSINESS. THIRD, IF YOU PAID YOUR WORKERS SOMETHING THEN YOU WOULD HAVE PLENTY OF AMERICAN WORKERS.

You would think it was just announced last week it is illegal to hire illegals and these guys had NO notice before hand.

If that is the way you run your business you should go under cause basicaly you are saying if I can't break the law I can't operate !!!!

BY SAYING THEY CANT MAKE IT WITHOUT ILLEGALS.....THEY ARE SAYING THAT IS WHAT THEY HAVE BEEN DOING ALL ALONG. AND THEY ARE SO BRAZEN ABOUT IT, THAT THEY ARE WILLING TO ADMIT IT PUBLICLY.

INVESTIGATE THEM AND SEND THEM TO PRISON. ANYONE WHO COMPLAINS THAT THEY HAVE TO FIRE THEIR ILLEGAL WORKERS SHOULD GO TO JAIL FOR EVEN HAVING ILLEGAL WORKERS

It's really quite simple to ensure labor for farm work. The easiest solution is to offer more pay to the workers and less to the owners/investors. We hear every week about a business exec getting millions in bonus pay -that's ONE person. How much of that money will be spent when the exec already has a personal jet, 2 mansions, a fleet of luxury cars and anything else they want or need? Many prisons use inmates to grow and maintain different crops, which the prison feeds to the inmates, and in some cases they're able to sell a percentage to other institutions. Are there no prisons in Colorado...We could also bring back the Bacero program where farmers are responsible for immigrant workers and the workers have to leave at the end of the season. If all these educated folks running our govt wanted to fix this crap, wouldn't they atleast look into other options?

I do regret the circumstances the growers find themselves in because of illegal immigration. But let's place responsibility where it belongs. They never had a right to hire illegals in the first place. If they had managed their hiring in accordance with the laws,there would have been a gradual increase of prices and the use of machinery. Or in the American tradition a lawful remedy would have been found for the labor shortage. We will all suffer now as our economy adjusts to the abrupt withdrawal of the cheap labor. We cannot change this situation without some pain and accountability must begin with those who have abused the system.

Get with the program that respects the law or get out of the business.

I don't care. I don't want to hear your sob story. Take the corruption out of your life and do right and maybe you will get blessed with plenty of CITIZENS that will do the job. If not get out of the business and let a FARMER do the job that you are not willing to do!!!!!!!!!!! We are tired of all the corruption so don't look for sympathy from America!!!! Get with it or GET OUT!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The government is making is possible for the illegals to be made temporary workers. This farm may be suffering - then again, it may be a bald faced lie.

And don't tell me this is a job Americans will not do.
I knew many young people who worked on cattle ranches in the Colorado mountains and they were out at six in the morning feeding cattle in four feet of snow with the temps around fourty below.