Thread: Employer sanctions closer; farmers uneasy

Published: 11.23.2007

Employer sanctions closer; farmers uneasy
By Eric Graf
THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
By the numbers
$9.2 billion
Annual agriculture sales in Arizona
2nd
Arizona's state ranking for production of head lettuce, leaf lettuce, romaine lettuce, cauliflower and broccoli
7,500
Number of farms and ranches in Arizona
Source: Arizona Farm Bureau
PHOENIX — Farmers will have a tougher time hiring legal workers from Mexico and consumers will face higher prices for produce when Arizona's employer sanctions law, intended to punish businesses that knowingly hire illegal immigrants, takes effect Jan. 1, groups representing Arizona's agriculture industry say.
Farmers who rely on Mexican workers entering the country legally to provide seasonal help worry that additional background checks at the border will cause many of those workers to stay home, said Joe Sigg, director of government relations for the Arizona Farm Bureau.
In Yuma County, where most of the nation's winter lettuce is grown, buses bring in more than 20,000 documented workers from Mexico, Sigg said.
"We already see workers who are authorized that get discouraged waiting in line to come over and choose not to," Sigg said.
"If any of those workers are new to the payroll, their documents have to pass through the new system, and how the system responds to that remains to be seen," Sigg said.
As of Jan. 1, all Arizona employers will have to use a federal program that matches new employees with their Social Security numbers to determine their eligibility to work in the United States. The law states that if a business knowingly hires illegal workers twice, the state can permanently revoke the company's licenses.
Even without the new law, farmers are having trouble finding help, representatives of farm groups said.
"Last year, in my opinion, was the first year a shortage in labor drove up price," said John Boelts, president of the Yuma County Farm Bureau. "Was it an anomaly? It's a sign of things to come."
The Arizona Farm Bureau, a non-governmental organization of farmers, is among the groups suing in federal court to block the law.
While farmers generally are reluctant to discuss the use of undocumented labor, it is part of farming, said Steve Husman, the director of campus agricultural centers at the University of Arizona's Cooperative Extension.
"There's no question that a portion of the agriculture work force in Arizona and California are undocumented," Husman said.
Husman said undocumented workers play a bigger role in Yuma County because that area requires more individuals to pick crops, as opposed to more mechanized processes for harvesting a crop such as cotton.
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/printDS/212960

DUPLICATE. (5 posts below)

With a 4 minute time difference, we were looking at the same article at the same time. Sorry.

Sometimes people post almost the same time.
Don't let it discourage you from posting articles ok?
Please refer further comments to:
http://www.alipac.us/ftopict-91631-empl ... +sanctions