Thread: Temporary worker plan not likely next year

http://www.abqtrib.com/albq/bu_national ... 07,00.html

Temporary worker plan not likely next year
By Peter Prengaman
Associated Press
December 19, 2005

OXNARD, Calif. - With only 28 of the 70 workers he needs, foreman Francisco Barragan is worried that Deardorff-Jackson farm won't be able to harvest 800 acres of celery before it rots.

"A few years ago, we could get people consistently," said Barragan, 50, a native of Mexico who has overseen Hispanic farm crews in California for 15 years. "Now we might lose some crops, because we don't have people."

Several things are changing the market for immigrant labor. Some workers opt for higher paying construction jobs, while both the government and civilian patrol groups such as the Minutemen have redoubled efforts to secure the still-porous southern border.

While farmers and allied business groups lobby for a guest worker program to regulate the millions of undocumented Hispanic workers already here or wanting to come, hard-line restrictionists push for law enforcement solutions to illegal immigration. That dynamic is dividing Republicans.

The result, immigration policy analysts agree: Don't bet that Congress will pass comprehensive reform proposals, some of which have languished for several years after President Bush jump-started the issue nearly two years ago.

With national elections in 2006 and a politically weakened president, even a promise to debate guest worker proposals early next year in the Senate might not amount to much.

"The president's political capital is so low right now. Is he going to use what little he has left on immigration reform?" asked Jaime Regalado, director of the Pat Brown Institute of Public Affairs at California State University, Los Angeles. "Maybe, but I don't think so."

The several major reform proposals differ in their details, but one thing all sides agree on is that the situation urgently needs attention.

Bush's proposal would give undocumented workers three-year work visas that could be extended for another three years, though workers would then have to leave for a year before applying again. Beyond the nod to businesses, it was aimed at wooing Hispanic voters for last year's presidential elections.

Still, many Republicans rejected it as unrealistic and criticized the president for not focusing more on border security.

Bush alienated many conservatives by calling the Minutemen "vigilantes" when they began patrolling the U.S.-Mexico border more than a year ago, said Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Study, which favors less immigration and stricter enforcement.

"The chief obstacle to reform is the president," said Krikorian.

Most of the viable reform proposals are Republican-led.

- GOP Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona propose letting immigrant workers enter the country for two years, followed by a one-year break. Workers could repeat that pattern two more times but then have to return home.

- Sens. John McCain, an Arizona Republican, and Edward Kennedy, a Democrat from Massachusetts, back legislation that would let illegal immigrants work in the U.S. for up to six years. After that, they would have to be on track to obtaining legal residency or leave.

- Nebraska Republican Sen. Chuck Hagel has proposed giving undocumented workers legal status if they pass criminal background checks, have lived in the U.S. for at least five years, have paid taxes, can demonstrate a knowledge of English and pay a $2,000 fine.

But Hagel said he believes border security must be strengthened before a guest worker program can succeed.

Conservatives take that a step further, saying talk of reform is meaningless until immigration officials are more aggressive.

"Guest worker programs are worthless," said Minutemen President Chris Simcox. "We can't even talk about that until there is real government enforcement on the border."

Immigration officials say they are focused on terrorist threats, that it would be impossible to send home the entire illegal population - estimates suggest there are more than 10 million - in one swoop.

"We understand the public is sometimes frustrated, but like any law enforcement, we have priorities" that also include counterterrorism, said Virginia Kice, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

More importantly, the government knows businesses are dependent on foreign labor, said Tamar Jacoby, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute who advocates both a guest worker program and resolving the immigration status of illegal immigrants in the country.

Most Americans are unwilling to do hard labor or farm jobs, she said, while many immigrants do them cheaply.

"Farming, construction, food processing, those businesses can't stay afloat without those workers," said Jacoby.

Barragan, the foreman, likes to tell the story of the last non-Hispanic who worked on the farm. It was 16 years ago that a Japanese immigrant came, cut cauliflower for two hours and quit.

"You never see any blacks or whites out here," said Maria Hurtado, 34, a Mexican who sorts tomatoes at the Deardorff-Jackson farm. "We are the ones who do this work."

Meanwhile, Barragan and Thomas Deardorff II, president of Deardorff-Jackson Co., are brainstorming ways to get workers for the celery crop. Their proven strategy - Spanish-language radio ads and offering to pay more than the standard $10 to $12 per hour - used to work, but this season's shortage seems too large for that.

"Every year we hope for a guest worker program but nothing happens," said Deardorff. "This problem could soon turn into an industry crisis."

Quote For the Year 2005:

"The chief obstacle to reform is the president," said Krikorian.

TERRIFIC QUOTE!!! And, boy is HE an OBSTACLE.

2nd Place Runner Up quote of 2005:

"Now we might lose some crops, because we don't have people."

Guess its time to pay the worker for what the job is worth you greedy fool!!

"Now we might lose some crops, because we don't have people."

I see three possible solutions to this problem, depending upon the crop:

1) use the funds you were paying illegals with to buy a machine to pick whatever it is

or

2) open up fields and allow customers to come to the field and pick their own crops for a reasonable amount of money per pint, bushel, peck or whatever

or

3) hire American workers for a decent wage.

3) hire American workers for a decent wage.

#3 gets my vote.

Hire American Citizens or pick it yourself. We don't change our laws that keep our nation safe, secure, free and successful because of your celery picker problems.

Got it?

The Ag business already has the H-2A temp unskilled worker visa available to them.

It has no annual cap.

The Ag business really doesn't want a guest worker program any more than they want to hire through the H-2A program. They want to keep on exploiting illegals.

That is the truth.

The Watchman...you are absolutely correct.

There are more AgJob visas available than are used. They increase the number every year even though the demand has declined every year. There is less need today for farm workers than ever in our history due to technology and fewer acres being farmed.

Millions of acres a year of farmland are lost to development. Fewer acres farmed fewer workers needed....less and less every year.

That is a mathematical fact which no one can deny.

There is no need for a new guest worker program except to meet the Globalist Agenda to flood our nation with more people than we can support, the result of which is a third world impoverished environment ripe for the gavel of World Tyranny...creating a population within the United States that these Traitors believe will not have the capacity or will to fight world government and will submit in trade for a Drone Dorm and a Bowl of GMO Mush to stay alive.

GIVE ME LIBERTY OR GIVE ME DEATH.

That is our creed. It has to be. It's Who We Are and What We Were Born To Do...when we were born Americans.

Now lets impeach this globalist garbage; get our country back; and start working our way to the Top Our Way, by Our Rules, Under Our Laws to OUR 100% Satisfaction the way it's supposed to be.

It seems to me that there are way more than enough ag worker visas and way more than enough ag workers in this country now. If they would keep track of the people they let in so that they didn't go wandering off, perhaps they wouldn't feel the need to let more in.

The way it is now, anyone who comes here can just go wherever the hell they feel like going, change jobs, obtain forged papers of a more permanent seeming nature, and enjoy every freedom that full-fledged American citizens enjoy. That just isn't right and it just isn't done in any other nation I've ever been in.