July 02, 2007

Idaho Potato Fields: Prisoners Relace Migrants
ID potato fields: cons replace migrants

By JOHN MILLER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER


BOISE, Idaho -- Potatoes are worth gold to Idaho's economy, but
that's not why an armed guard oversees red T-shirted workers at the
SunGlo packing plant located deep in tuber country.

Workers from Mexico have become more scarce, so the Sugar City, Idaho-
based company's managers have a different source of employees: prison.



"We've gone as far as hiring the college students just to get
through," Tom Sessions, a supervisor at SunGlo, told The Associated
Press on Friday. "We got rid of that and got the inmates."

Idaho isn't alone in shoring up farmworker shortages with convicts.
Colorado started a program last month.

States using inmates to augment crews picking fruits and vegetables
highlight a reality in agricultural America: Hispanic workers are in
tight supply. Jobs in the construction economy lure them from the
farms and the intensifying spotlight on illegal immigration along
America's e southern border has cut the number of prospective
laborers willing to come north.

A comprehensive immigration reform bill pushed by President Bush
collapsed Thursday in the U.S. Senate.

Still, some Western lawmakers now say they'll try to resurrect an
"AgJobs" provision of Bush's plan that could open the way to legal
status for those migrants who work in U.S. agriculture and fulfill
certain conditions. They aim to combine the provision with Bush's $4
billion plan to enforce border security.

"I started immediately seeing if it would be possible to put together
a border enforcement package along with a guest worker program for
American agriculture," said U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, long an
advocate of the guest-worker plan. "Following the 4th of July break,
I'll explore the possibility of doing that in Congress."

Craig was among supporters of Bush's bill, which fell 14 votes short
of the 60 needed to stay alive.

Among Northwest senators, Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and
Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington state voted with Craig.

While Sens. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and Gordon Smith, R-Oregon, opposed
the measure, both are more likely to support a scaled-back initiative
that excludes controversial provisions some lawmakers said amounted
to amnesty for 12 million illegal aliens.

Smith, who owns a frozen foods company, sponsored a 1999 AgJobs bill.
It would have given permanent resident status to farmworkers who'd
worked here for five years.

"The senator has said Congress needs to act first on border
enforcement, then turn to a clearer path to citizenship - and a jobs
program that meets the needs of the economy," R.C. Hammond, a
spokesman for Smith in Washington, D.C., told the AP when asked about
the guest-worker program.

Crapo co-sponsored Smith's legislation eight years ago.

He said Friday he'd work with Craig.

"Even though the particular bill on the floor was rejected, that
doesn't mean that a majority - a very strong majority of senators -
don't think we need to do something," Crapo said.

Farmers from Washington state to New York lament labor shortages that
have cost them millions, ranging from orchard owners who left
thousands of trees unplanted to unpicked asparagus. The Western
Growers Association, which represents 3,000 fruit and vegetable
farmers in California and elsewhere, estimates labor shortages of
between 20 percent and 30 percent across California.

More than half of the nation's 1.8 million farmworkers are estimated
to be here illegally.

"We want a legal work force, and the only way we can get that is
through immigration reform," said Jasper Hempel, a lobbyist for the
Western Growers Association. "While we're not pushing for AgJobs as a
separate issue, we'll consider it, if that was the only thing we
could get."

Meanwhile, states such as Idaho that have bolstered farmworkers with
felons say it's a temporary solution. Their prisons are virtually
tapped out.

Six years ago, Idaho had 18 inmates from the St. Anthony Work Camp at
potato plants. Today, there are 120.

"The reduction in the labor pool of migrant workers has increased
probably 10-fold the use of offenders," said Idaho Correction
Department Lt. Jim Woolf, who oversees inmate workers. "I've got
several potato warehouses that would love to have a crew of 15 to 20
inmates to offset the labor shortages. We don't have enough inmates."





http://realcostofprisons.org/blog/archi ... to_fi.html