Thread: Growers fear worst in immigration reform debate

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Posted on Mon, May. 29, 2006email thisprint this
Growers fear worst in immigration reform debate
BY MICHAEL MARTINEZ
Chicago Tribune
OCEANSIDE, Calif. - Tomato grower Luawanna Hallstrom understands how paths cross in the shadowy world of illegal immigrant and employer.

Her three-generation family farm needed workers to harvest a crop in 2001, so it hired 300 farmhands. All their documents appeared in order, she said.

Then federal authorities found that three-fourths of the workers were illegal immigrants, and that left the peak harvest in ruins.

"People say, `You should get those employers that hire the undocumented!' Well, wait a minute. They have documents, but they're fraudulent. We are supposed to take them at face value - otherwise you get into these discrimination issues," Hallstrom said.

As enforcement has intensified in recent years and would multiply further under proposals now before Congress, growers like Hallstrom say they are under a strain over whether their fields will have enough workers.

This reality has made growers major stakeholders in Congress' efforts to reform immigration policies. The U.S. Senate is poised to vote Thursday on a comprehensive immigration bill, with passage considered likely.

One part of the bill would legalize up to 1.5 million undocumented farmhands over a five-year period. Of the nation's 1.6 million farm workers, growers say 70 percent are undocumented, but the United Farm Workers says it's 95 percent.

For the past year, farmers have been complaining about a potential labor shortage, highlighted this month by a federal Agriculture Department report showing 4 percent fewer workers on American farms than a year ago. The May issue of California Farmer magazine, sitting in Hallstrom's office, was dominated with headlines such as "Labor woes grow."

Some producers say that if they do not have an adequate workforce, they may be forced to move their farms to other countries.

Hallstrom remedied her 2001 crisis by hiring farm workers through the federal government's temporary guest agricultural worker program. The program is shunned by most farmers because it's too costly and its bureaucratic delays threaten crops, she said. One reason Hallstrom uses the guest farm worker program is that her family does some of its farming on land leased from Camp Pendleton, where there are heightened security concerns.

But many farmers are less secure about the legality of their workforce.

"If you had electronic verification (of workers' documents) right now and you went out there and checked every worker, you might as well lock up every farmer out there. There's nowhere else to go" to find laborers, Hallstrom said.

So, in an unusual alliance between growers and farm worker advocates, both sides persuaded Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., to sponsor the proposed five-year pilot program for legalizing farm workers.

The Senate proposal, dubbed AgJobs, would also streamline the so-called H-2A guest worker program that Hallstrom currently uses and would freeze worker wages at 2003 levels for three years, during which a federal study would re-evaluate pay formulas, officials said.

"This would make sure (undocumented farm workers) would come out of the shadows," said Scott Gerber, spokesman for Feinstein.

Although the United Farm Workers are a partner with growers in endorsing the measure, the group disputes farmers' claims of looming labor shortages. Marc Grossman, principal spokesman for the United Farm Workers, said pay was stagnant at minimum-wage levels, hardly an indication of higher demand for workers. But the Agriculture Department study showed wages up 5 percent from a year ago, with field workers making an average $8.96 an hour last month.

"We don't agree with growers on anything except immigration reform," Grossman said.

Added Craig Regelbrugge, co-chairman of a growers group called the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform, "We need to solve agriculture's problem of reliance on an illegal workforce."

If passed, the Senate measure would stand in sharp contrast to a proposal passed by the U.S. House, which doesn't offer provisions for legalization. The Senate bill would find strong opponents in a joint conference, whose mission would be to reconcile both chambers' reform initiatives.

"It's a bald-faced amnesty," said Will Adams, spokesman for Rep. Tom Tancredo, R-Colo.

"Growers don't want to pay the prevailing wage because they want to undercut American workers and get around the law," Adams said. "The union, they don't want the workers to go home (to their native countries). They want them to stay and be part of the union."

Jeff Lungren, spokesman for Rep. James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis., who's a leading advocate for tougher border enforcement, said sanctions against employers with illegal immigrant workers are especially needed.

"It is always cheaper to hire an illegal worker because the employer doesn't always follow the wage laws and take out for Social Security," he said.

Back on the farm, where laborers stooped to prepare the fields for planting vineripe tomatoes, Hallstrom can recite rich lore on how the family business was started by her immigrant grandfather, Harry Singh, from Punjab, India, and her Basque grandmother from New Mexico. In addition to the Camp Pendleton tract, the family venture farms in the scenic San Luis Rey Valley.

Hallstrom and other California growers contend that many farm workers have found more profitable work in construction and elsewhere, straining their labor pool.

Without immigration reforms, Hallstrom said, "Agriculture in this country would go away, as we know it." Her family would consider moving its farm to Mexico, where many of her workers now originate, she said.

http://www.ledger-enquirer.com/mld/ledg ... 693445.htm


Seems these big farmers are causing a lot of trouble and must have a big lobby to get illegals here.......I cannot help but think years ago, farmers, no matter how big their farms were, did their own work, hired workers and their family members helped.

American's should not have to see their country ruined, because farmers want illegals to work for them....get the less violent prisoners to do it....our tax dollars are given to big farmers willy nilly anyway....we can't allow them to ruin our Country too!

No matter what laws the Senate dreams up, these farmers just want their cheap labor...they don't want to pay the prevailing wages, health insurance, etc. I believe they will always find an illegal.

Really,

Farms have become very large scale commercial business and they also get subsidies if the crops fail. They need to call ICE out first day of harvest and let them screen them. Nice way for ICE to do a sting. Have a farm hire them and they show up and make arrest. At that farm they would have netted 225 illegals at one time. They knew they were hiring illegals. Playing innocent because you got caught and fined. Too Bad.

Dixie

Without immigration reforms, Hallstrom said, "Agriculture in this country would go away, as we know it." Her family would consider moving its farm to Mexico, where many of her workers now originate, she said.

Good luck lady, go try and become a land owning citizen in Mexico! Friggen traitors!

If they're going to hire Mexicans, they might as well move to Mexico. No loss of jobs anyway for Americans, if they move there.