Thread: Studies stress U.S. immigration needs overhaul

Studies stress U.S. immigration needs overhaul

Issue Date: March 8, 2006

By Kate Campbell
Assistant Editor

The thorny task of improving security along the U.S.-Mexico border, while at the same time maintaining reliable numbers of guest workers for agriculture and other U.S. business sectors, is getting close attention in Congress. Both houses are fractured over the many issues raised by meaningful immigration reform, and California farmers and ranchers are watching closely to see how the situation is resolved.

The American Farm Bureau Federation recently completed a study analyzing legislative efforts to amend existing immigration law. The study found that if Congress enacts legislation dealing only with border security and enforcement, the impact on agriculture, particularly in California, will be enormous.

The House did pass a border security bill last year--House Resolution 4437, sponsored by F. James Sensenbrenner Jr., R-Wis. Passage sparked an outcry because it is an enforcement-only bill without provision for a guest worker program.

In contrast to the House's legislation, the Senate seems willing to wade into the guest worker issue, which President Bush has repeatedly said he supports. And agriculture leaders say there's good reason to support a guest worker provision.

Based on data from the U.S. departments of agriculture and labor, and from its own studies, AFBF finds that if Congress enacts legislation dealing only with border security, agriculture will be hit with losses in fruits and vegetables alone of between $5 billion and $9 billion a year.

"The agriculture industry is unique in that we are highly dependent on temporary foreign workers to fill jobs most Americans do not want to perform," said AFBF President Bob Stallman. "Many family farms depend on temporary labor and could not sustain the impact of net farm income losses brought about by current immigration proposals."

The fruit, vegetable and nursery sectors as they now exist would disappear, the AFBF study finds. Up to one-third of these growers--who are especially dependent on hired labor--would no longer be able to compete. Instead of stocking produce and floral products grown and harvested in the United States, America's grocers would increasingly fill their shelves with foreign-grown produce, resulting in billions of dollars currently kept in the United States being sent overseas.

Fruit, vegetable and nursery farmers already are battling competitiveness issues. Agricultural producers outside the United States access low-cost labor and operate without the same worker safety and environmental protection rules as their American counterparts.

The AFBF report finds that without a safe and efficient guest worker program, California would be most severely effected by immigration reform legislation that fails to address the needs of agriculture. As the nation's largest farm state and a powerhouse for the production of fruits, vegetables and nursery crops, the AFBF report puts California's production losses at between $1.7 billion and $3.1 billion a year.

"Farm Bureau will not stand by while a significant segment of our industry is outsourced to foreign countries," said Stallman. "We will work vigorously for a sensible, balanced immigration bill that secures our borders, toughens sanctions on those who willingly violate the law, and provides American agriculture with a viable guest worker program that maintains this vibrant sector of the U.S. economy."

In the past the issue of illegal immigration, based on public opinion polls conducted by the Public Policy Institute of California, tended to rise in the public mind during bad economic times and fall in boom times.

"In our recent polls, just 1 in 10 residents named 'legal and illegal immigrants' as the most important issue facing the people of California," said Hans Johnson, PPIC researcher. "A similarly low percentage said this is the issue they most want the governor and Legislature to tackle this year."

Nevertheless, Californians are still expressing concern about the numbers of illegal immigrants. A December poll for the institute found that half of Californians believed illegal immigration contributed "a lot" to their region's population growthmconsiderably more than 1 in 4 mentioning births, interstate migration and legal immigration. These views are widely held in all racial/ethnic categories, political groups and state regions.

Demographic facts fuel these perceptions, Johnson said. An estimated 2.4 million California residents are in the state illegally--a number exceeding illegal immigration levels of the next most populous state, Texas, by about 1 million. And, the number of illegal immigrants in California has grown by about 1 million in just a decade.

PPIC studies indicate that illegal immigrants are mostly young, working and predominantly in the state to take on jobs in agriculture, construction, manufacturing, retail trade and services.

Despite the growth of this population and lingering concerns about the costs of providing state services, the study finds most Californians have concluded that immigrants--legal and illegal--are an integral part of the state's economy.

The institute's survey shows 7 in 10 Californians favor a temporary guest-worker program that would allow illegal immigrants who have jobs to live and work in the United States for a fixed period of time--with strong support from Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, whites and Latinos, and Northern and Southern California residents alike.

Johnson pointed out that California agriculture, with about 250,000 full-time-equivalent workers, is not the state's largest employer of illegal immigrants. The service sector employs more than 1 million full-time illegal or falsely documented workers, experts say.

Congressman Mike Honda, D-San Jose, said, "The only way to address our nation's broken immigration system is through comprehensive bi-partisan immigration reform. Democrats and Republicans, business interests, labor advocates and immigrant rights advocates must all work together if we are to truly craft a solution.

"I believe immigrants make America stronger, and it is very much in our national interest to make our immigration laws more rational, consistent and humane," said Honda, who will participate in a bi-partisan public forum on immigration reform March 20 in San Jose. "There are approximately 11 million undocumented immigrants in this country who live in constant fear of deportation, even though the vast majority of these individuals are hard-working taxpayers who contribute greatly to our economy.

"The time has come for Congress to prioritize immigration and enact legislation that is committed to fixing the issues at hand by enacting an immigration law that addresses the real needs of families and businesses while reflecting America's history of valuing the contributions of immigrants."

The National Council of Agricultural Employers and the Agriculture Coalition on Immigration Reform have planned a March 15 event for agriculture interests to descend on Capitol Hill and make their views heard in Washington, D.C. The California Farm Bureau Federation is sending a delegation to participate in the march.

Craig Regelbrugge, co-chairman of the coalition and director of government relations for the American Nursery & Landscape Association, based in Washington, D.C., said march organizers welcome any help. The council's Web site address is www.NCAEonline.org.

Regelbrugge said Arlen Specter, R-Pa., chairman of the Senate's judiciary committee, took up immigration the first week of March and Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., wants a bill on the Senate floor by March 27.

"We only have a few weeks to do everything we can," Regelbrugge said. "We need farmers. You all need to be fully deployed and be heard. The urgency is real."

To review the complete AFBF study "Immigration Reform Must Include Guest-Worker Provisions," go to www.fb.org.

(Kate Campbell is a reporter for Ag Alert. She may be contacted at kcampbell@cfbf.com.)

Permission for use is granted, however, credit must be made to the California Farm Bureau Federation when reprinting this item.

I still don't buy it. With all the new machinery for farmers, they still have to hire illegals?

Forty years ago, my cousins had the biggest farm in Southern Ohio He worked it by himself, and later his son helped.

And they had more money than my parents had, with Dad working as a photographer.

So what changed? What made farmers depend on illegals?

I read an new article here, where most US florists get their roses from some latin America country....said no one raises their roses anymore.

Who wants someone touching their foods, when you know they have never had a health exam!

This is all BS, there is already the H2A visa, for temporary ag workers. There is NO LIMIT to the number issued!

But it does involve paperwork and time, and farmers have grown used to hiring illegal aliens, it is easier.