Published: 03.10.2008

Even legal entry is chancy for seasonal farmworkers
Many make costly trips, hoping to gain the right to work in U.S. fields — but rejection can be their bitter harvest
By Brady McCombs
ARIZONA DAILY STAR

HERMOSILLO, Sonora — Santos Medina Flores and Manuel Castro Machado stand one final approval from an opportunity to work legally in the United States.
They are among a group of 70 men and women who have already been selected for farm jobs near Yuma. They've arrived this morning on an overnight bus from San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, to pre-sent their applications for three-month seasonal work visas at the U.S. Consulate.
Milling around the consulate waiting for instructions from the group's organizers, Medina raves about what a great opportunity it would be to work in the United States without having to enter illegally, as he later admits he has done before.
"In addition to the dangers that one faces — they often abandon you en route, and it's dangerous if an accident occurs — they charge a lot," says Medina, a 41-year-old father of three, speaking in Spanish. "It's a good business. They charge as much as $1,500."
Here, each person will pay a $131, non-refundable interview fee, and another $100 if approved. They also had to pay $101 for a Mexican passport, plus travel costs to get here.
In Medina and Castro's hometown of Guasave, Sinaloa, men jumped at the opportunity when word spread through the ranches that a man from Yuma was looking for agricultural workers, says Castro, 22. The contractor who recruited them is from Guasave and has been living in the United States for many years, Castro says. He loaned each of them $300 with the agreement that they would pay him back when they began working, he says.
In Guasave, "you don't make much and you work a lot," Castro says. "It's like a black hole. You work and work and can't get ahead."
The H2B visas for temporary non-agricultural workers are capped at 66,000 a year. But H2A visas for seasonal agricultural work are unlimited. The consensus among U.S. farmers is that they need more legal agricultural workers — an estimated 600,000 to 800,000 of the 1.2 million agricultural workers in the United States are here illegally, the U.S. Department of Labor says.
But employers have traditionally shied away from the H2A program because it is "burdensome, duplicative and riddled with delays," U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao said in a Feb. 6 press conference announcing proposed changes to streamline the program.
The program, run by four state and federal agencies, requires that companies prove the need for the workers by advertising the positions in newspapers or on the radio. Employers must also pay workers' transportation, housing, meals and an inflated minimum wage. In Arizona, employers are required to pay H2A workers $8.70 an hour, $1.80 more than the minimum wage.
Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said at that same press conference the program was "so unfriendly that, frankly, most people choose not to use it."
That appears to be changing, albeit slightly. The number of H2A visas issued by the U.S. State Department has increased each of the past three years. The 50,791 issued in fiscal 2007 represented a 61 percent increase from 2002, figures show.
More Arizona companies might start using the program because of the state's new employer-sanctions law, which can revoke business licenses of companies that knowingly or intentionally hire illegal workers, says Frank Chavez, general manager of F. Chavez Harvesting in Yuma.
He was in Hermosillo to escort the 30 people who would work for him, picking broccoli and lettuce. They will be able to stay until April 31, he says.
Both his company and Union Harvest, which planned to take 40 workers, did their paperwork through the Independent Agricultural Workers Center, a Catholic Relief Services non-profit in San Luis Rio Colorado, Sonora, that connects workers with companies.
"It gives them an opportunity for the ones that haven't gotten in any trouble or anything to really do things right, because that is really all they want to do, is work," says Jesse Duron, of the Center.
Both Medina and Castro echoed the sentiment: They hoped to get approved and be able to make good money and lay the groundwork for visas. Medina hopes his second trip to the consulate in Hermosillo will turn out better than his first, when in 1992 his request for a tourist visa was rejected.
"We got together all the requisites they asked for; we've got the documents they asked for," Medina says.
Like all other non-immigrant visas, the ultimate decision lies in the hands of consular officers, who are trained to assume that every applicant intends to overstay a visa and remain in the United States illegally to live or work.
In 2007, officials approved 79 percent of the 64,066 applicants, the lowest approval percentage since 2002, State Department figures showed.
It's not easy to predict who'll get approved or denied, says Duron, who is making his fifth trip to the consulate with workers. Some people who have crossed illegally into the United States many times are approved while others who have done so only once are denied, he says.
It's all up to the consulate officers. "They are the ones that make the decisions," Duron says.
Mixed results
After turning in their immigration forms and having their fingerprints taken in the morning, the prospective workers are called back inside after lunch. They pass through a security check, then wait in chairs until they are called in groups of five for interviews.
Consulate officers ask them about anything that comes up from their background checks or any anomaly on their immigration forms.
Officers approve 63 of the 70, including Castro. Medina is one of the seven who are rejected.
The smiling, talkative man from the morning is now stoic and introspective. The other workers pepper him with questions about why he was denied, about what the consulate officer had said.
Staring straight ahead, he mumbles something about a bicycle ticket. When pressed, he explains that a traffic ticket in his background check showed he had been living illegally in the United States. He admitted to the officer he had lived in Los Angeles from 2000 to 2002.
The other workers are confused — some say men in their groups also admitted being in the United States illegally but were still approved — but Medina is done talking. He walks off slowly with another man who was rejected.
He doesn't know what he'll do beyond returning on the bus with the group to San Luis Rio Colorado. They told him inside that he had a 10-year ban on applying for a visa.
One of the other men who was denied was more clear about what he would do.
"I tried the right way, so now I'm going to go back to doing it the wrong way," says Marco Antonio Trujillo, 31, of Mexicali, who was also denied and given a 10-year ban for living illegally in the United States. "I don't want to die in the desert. . . . I know you should come in through the big door so you don't cause problems for the United States, but they don't want to let me."
With a 4-year-old daughter who was born in the United States, Trujillo says he will continue crossing illegally until his daughter turns 21 and can sponsor him for a green card. He only makes $150 a week in Mexico as a mechanic or in the fields. In the United States, he brings home $600 to $700 a week.
The young Castro is eager to begin working and making nearly six times what he makes at the ranch. He needs to pay the contractor back, and he says he wants to help his family with living expenses — and maybe buy some things for himself. He hopes his three-month stint goes well and that he will continue getting approved for temporary visas.
"I am going to behave well," he says. "Play by the rules — it's easier that way."
about the series
This year the Arizona Daily Star strives to provide context to the immigration debate by analyzing the common rhetoric surrounding illegal immigration.
The first installment of this series runs through Friday.
Follow several people as they attempt different legal ways to get into the U.S. as a student, worker or family member.
On StarNet
Find their stories and photo sideshows at www.azstarnet.com/special/ legalimmigration
By the numbers
temporary H2A worker visas
50,791
visas issued in 2007
64,066
visas requested in 2007
79
percent approval rate in 2007
Source: U.S. State Department
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