Thread: Guest Workers' Flight Irks Sheep Ranchers

April 11, 2013, 7:22 p.m. ET
Guest Workers' Flight Irks Sheep Ranchers

With Some Shepherds on Special Visas Abandoning Their Flocks, Industry Joins Calls for Federal Immigration Overhaul

By JOEL MILLMAN
Denis Kowitz has a shepherd-retention problem at his Idaho wool-growing operation, and he hopes changes in federal immigration law will help fix it.
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Leah Nash Idaho rancher Henry Etcheverry said he got a tip that some of his foreign shepherds left to work for a roofer.

"One was named Oscar, the other…well, I can't remember. But he's gone!" he says of two hired hands who left in March, just when he needed them for lambing season on his ranch in Rupert, in southern Idaho.
Mr. Kowitz said he paid about $3,000 per shepherd to find them and fly them from Peru. He said he assumed they quit to work in construction or at a dairy or landscaper. In the past 16 months, he said he has lost six shepherds under similar circumstances.
His complaint illustrates one factor driving demand among agriculture employers for an overhaul of U.S. immigration law.
On the surface, the law seems to favor sheep ranchers. The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 allows U.S. agriculture managers to hire "guest workers" on H-2A visas for 10 months of work, but foreign shepherds can get year-round visas, renewable for three years. The reason: Unlike with most agricultural sectors, the law doesn't treat sheep ranching as seasonal.
Ranchers have found an eager and skilled pool of workers in sheepherding regions of Latin America. About 1,500 foreigners—mostly from Peru, Chile and Mexico—now work in sheep ranching in the U.S. on H-2A visas, the American Sheep Industry Association said.
But some don't tend their flocks as long as they agreed to. "These men come legally at my expense, and then someone else recruits them," says Barry Duelke, a Buhl, Idaho, sheep rancher who says two of his five foreign shepherds took off in March. "The system is broken."
The shepherds' visas are tied to sheep ranching. If they leave to work in another industry, they join the ranks of the country's undocumented workers.
Idaho state Sen. Jeff Siddoway, a Republican and a sheep rancher himself, drafted legislation this year to target what some in the region call "wayward shepherds." His bill called for arresting foreign shepherds who leave their flocks and for misdemeanor charges on the employers poaching them.
The legislature stopped short of introducing the bill after protests from dairymen and nursery operators, as well as from critics who said it smacked of promoting indentured servitude. "We weren't looking to punish anyone; we just want the abandonment to stop," Mr. Siddoway said.
Sheep ranchers now are counting on a federal answer to their problem. Ranchers say that if other agricultural employers were able to offer longer-term visas, too, they would be less likely to poach their foreign shepherds. They also say that allocating more funds for immigration enforcement of visa contracts would dissuade shepherds from abandoning their jobs.
"The bottom line is, if we have a comprehensive immigration reform we wouldn't have one segment of agriculture siphoning labor from another segment of agriculture," said Stan Boyd, a Boise lobbyist and director of the Idaho Wool Growers Association.
An industry group, Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform, is lobbying for extending long-term guest-worker contracts to all farmers. "We want longer visa terms for sure; two years or three years are both in the discussion," says Craig Regelbrugge, the coalition's co-chairman.
Ranchers in states such as Utah, Idaho and Nevada say they have a hard time finding shepherds locally because the work involves long hours of isolation near their sheep, guiding them by day to pastures and warding off predators at night.
Wages attract shepherds like Peruvian Edwin Taramona, who makes $750 a month plus room and board working for Mr. Kowitz. That is more than twice what he said he could make at home. "You have to work hard, but it's worth it," said the 42-year-old Mr. Taramona, who arrived in January. Shepherd Augusto Martín, 41, is on his fourth U.S. contract since 1999, using his wages to build a house in Peru and open a savings account. "I would never have these things if I stayed in Peru," he says.
But ranchers say they regularly lose some to jobs that promise a more stable lifestyle. Henry Etcheverry of Rupert, Idaho, said he got a tip that some of his wayward shepherds went to a roofer. Frank Shirts, a sheep rancher in Wilder, Idaho, suspects that some of his shepherds went to dairies.
Dennis Richins, who matches shepherds with ranches for the Western Range Association in Salt Lake City, keeps track of nearly 900 guest workers. In 2012, 95 left before their contracts ended, said Mr. Richins, the group's executive director, adding, "I think we're running a little ahead of that pace this year."
Sheep ranchers, who say they typically pay about $3,000 for airfare and other expenses, say they have little luck bringing wayward shepherds back into the fold.
U.S. law requires employers to report guest workers who don't show up after five days to federal authorities. A Department of Homeland Security investigation might deem any "absconder," as it officially calls a violator, to be breaking immigration law.
Federal agents do track the shepherds who walk away from their jobs, depending on enforcement priorities, which concentrate on criminal aliens, immigration fugitives and border crossers, said Andrew Muñoz, a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman in Seattle.
The notion that landscaping jobs were tempting shepherds was a surprise to that industry when Mr. Siddoway aired his proposal, said Tami Plank, president-elect of the Idaho Nursery and Landscape Association. "It's really not an issue at all with our members."
Dairies may unknowingly hire wayward shepherds, said Brent Olmstead, a Boise lobbyist for the Milk Producers of Idaho trade group. Mr. Olmstead said he is urging Idaho's congressional delegation in Washington to press for an immigration overhaul. "We want to see what comes out of reforms," he says. "It could be similar to what the sheep herders presently have. Being able to have workers here for years on renewable visas would be wonderful."
Write to Joel Millman at joel.millman@wsj.com
　
　
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323916304578404921204162376.html

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