theepochtimes.com
By Mary Silver
Epoch Times Staff
Created: September 28, 2011
Last Updated:
November 30, -0001

Rep. Dan Lungren (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Administration Committee and a member of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration Policy and Enforcement, wants farmers to be allowed to hire guest workers without using the federal E-Verify database.


Last week a House committee passed a bill to require all American employers to check the immigration status of new hires. Lamar Smith (R-Texas) sponsored the bill. The House Judiciary Committee passed the Legal Workforce Act on Sept. 21. It does not give farmers a way to avoid using the controversial database, which critics have said is both inaccurate and impractical for farmers.


Lungren wants the full House to add an amendment to exempt farmers from the mandate they voted on and send it to the Senate. He thinks it is necessary for farmers to be able to hire seasonal guest workers to harvest crops, including workers who are not citizens.


Representatives of the industry agree. “The produce supply chain grinds to a halt without reliable labor, so a viable, practical guest worker program is an absolute must for any immigration solution, and we continue to push for a guest worker provision,” said Robert Guenther, senior vice president of public policy for United Fresh Produce Association, in a statement.


“The legislation in its current form will devastate American agriculture, so this makes Congressman Lungren’s work on this matter all the more critical, and underscores the importance of uniting the industry’s voice here in Washington,” said Guenther.


Speaking of Georgia’s immigration law, which already requires growers in the state to use E-Verify, Javier Palomarez, president and CEO of the U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, said in a phone press conference that the database is expensive for farmers to use. Few have high-speed Internet where they are hiring workers, and many must pay others to do the checking for them, at a cost of about $147 per worker.


Worse still is the cost of hiring someone who then must be let go because of his or her immigration status. “E-Verify is a job killer. It’s not just taking one job. It’s taking jobs upstream and downstream,” said Palomarez.


George Hall, executive director of the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association, said at the same press conference that Georgia’s crops were not being harvested on time because Georgia’s immigration law was depriving farmers of essential skilled laborers. “Unfortunately the same thing could happen nationally if E-Verify passes without enough thought. There has got to be an alternative offered.”

Lungren hopes to persuade his colleagues in the Legislature to offer a practical alternative for farmers. In an official statement, he said he supports E-Verify, but his “Legal Agricultural Workforce Act -H.R. 2895 will establish a market based approach to meeting the demand for agricultural labor.” It would allow immigrants to work in agriculture for 10 months of any 12 months period, and abolish what he called the bureaucratic structure of the H2A visa program.

Smith has said on his official House website, "There are nearly 16 million Americans out of work and an estimated 8 million jobs are held by illegal immigrants. By simply enforcing current immigration laws, we could create millions of job opportunities for American citizens and legal immigrants." He opposes a guest worker program.

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