Thread: Grower loses workers following audit

Grower loses workers following audit

By Tom Karst
Mon, 22 Mar 2010 13:11:28 GMT


The Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency is making good on a promise to step up audits on illegal immigrants, and one of the biggest apple growers in central Washington is Exhibit A that agriculture is not exempt from the scrutiny.



The shift in enforcement focus from targeting illegal immigrants during the Bush administration to targeting employers who hire them in the Obama administration was announced last spring by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano.

Lorie Dankers, spokeswoman for the customs office in Seattle, would not confirm or deny that customs conducted an I-9 audit at Brewster, Wash.-based Gebbers Farms, which sells apples and cherries through Chelan Fresh Marketing, Chelan, Wash.

The Yakima (Wash.) Valley Herald reported a customs audit concluded in December resulted in the dismissal of more than 550 workers at the company.

“What I can say is that no industry is immune from being audited by ICE,â€

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The growers are cheap and thus hire illegals. Under NAFTA they can bring in workers legally on visas but don't. The reason is that they would have to follow labor laws and pay workers for overtime. Canada has Mexicans come on visas to help with the growing season and/or harvesting and once the season is over they have to leave and do. Canadian immigration does tolerate illegals and deport them even if they have a baby born there. There are no benefits for them as they have here.

Swatchick wrote:
"Canada has Mexicans come on visas to help with the growing season and/or harvesting and once the season is over they have to leave and do. Canadian immigration does tolerate illegals and deport them even if they have a baby born there. There are no benefits for them as they have here."

The "Seasonal Agricultural Workers Program" (SAWA)! I have written over and over about this program, whereby the Canadian government contracts directly with the governments of Mexico and Caribbean nations which formerly were members of the Commenwealth for seasonal workers who are SELECTED BY THEIR OWN GOVERNMENTS to participate in the program. All their human and labor rights are fully protected by the Canadian government while they are working in Canada, but, as Swatchick wrote, they are returned to their home countries BY THE CANADIAN GOVERNMENT when their employment is concluded. Because their employment is based on a strictly limited contract between governments, there is no question of their marching in the streets and demanding Canadian government benefits, etc.. Evidently the program works well both for Canadian planter/growers, who do not complain that they cannot "compete internationally" without ever-more foreign labor, and for the foreign workers themselves, who are well-treated and whose legal wages and benefits are insured by the Canadian government. The Canadian program places equal responsibility on the governments of the nations from which the seasonal workers come, rather than throwing the responsibility for worker selection and immigration enforcement entirely upon the individual planter/growers and the Canadian (or in our case, the U.S.) government alone.

I have written my representatives and other elected officials about modeling our H2-A "Temporary Workers in Agriculture" Visa Program after the successful Canadian program, but I get no response. I wrote Rep. Larry Craig when he still was in office leading the charge for the "AG-Jobs Amnesty" pointing out that his home state of Idaho bordered on Canada, and perhaps it would not be expensive or troublesome for him to take a personal tour there to find out about their program.