Group launches campaign against E-Verify for ag

By a Drovers CattleNetwork news source | Updated: August 15, 2011

A consortium of community advocates, political leaders and farmers launched a campaign this week called "Save America’s Food and Economy," (SAFE) to protect farms and agriculture from the impact of H.R. 2164, otherwise known as the “Legal Workforce Act."

SAFE is a new and historic public awareness campaign complete with website, social media tools and an extensive grassroots operation. It represents the combined efforts of the agricultural industry encouraging support for a long-term, stable and legal farm workforce for America’s 2.2 million farms. Saving farms also saves countless local communities, small businesses and families that rely on the agricultural industry as an economic lifeline. The agriculture sector accounts for nearly 2% of national Gross Domestic Product and supports 15% of the economy as a whole.

Introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), H.R. 2164 mandates all U.S. businesses, including farms, use the electronic E-Verify database managed by the Department of Homeland Security. SAFE, fighting to secure the future of America’s farms and foods supply, argues that the bill must be modified to accommodate experienced migrant farm workers. The campaign supports the need for farms to hire experienced guest workers – who comprise more than 80% of America’s agricultural workforce. These skilled, seasonal farm workers are the backbone of U.S. agriculture, and their labor sustains hundreds of thousands of farm-dependent U.S. jobs belonging to workers who would also be displaced if H.R. 2164 were enacted.

“We understand our representatives in Washington are struggling to find a solution to our immigration problem, but exporting our nation’s food supply and the jobs that go with it is not the solution,â€