Thread: Potato growers struggle without migrants

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/ ... 88839.html

Potato growers struggle without migrants


By JOHN MILLER Associated Press Writer
© 2006 The Associated Press

BOISE, Idaho — While Washington politicians spar over who has the best election-year border control and immigration plan, Jack Hoopes wonders who will harvest his seed potatoes. He needs 50 workers for the three-week harvest starting next week. He has just 35, including students who get a week off from school in the Teton Valley, a farming region northeast of Idaho Falls.

Hoopes said his Hispanic workers tell him President Bush's plan for 6,000 National Guard troops on America's 1,951-mile southern border and the intensifying spotlight on illegal immigration have had a chilling effect on Mexicans willing to come north.

Adding to the famers' dilemma is Congress' failure to adopt immigration reform.

On Thursday, the U.S. House voted 283-138 to build a 750-mile-long fence along the Mexican border, part of a Republican Party effort to keep the illegal immigration issue before voters. A similar bill passed the House in December.

The "emergency measure" now goes to the Senate, which in May approved a broader immigration bill with provisions for guest workers and 370 miles of fencing.

With the debate unresolved, Hoopes and other farmers say they're suffering.

"It's going to take longer to harvest the potatoes," he told The Associated Press. "I've spoken with other neighbors, and they're having the same problem. Something needs to be done with immigration reform. We depend on (immigrant workers)."

Thirty years ago, Idaho's women and children provided enough labor for harvest season. Now, Hoopes says, women have jobs and some teenagers aren't interested in the work _ and farms are larger. Furthermore, with the construction boom in Idaho and neighboring Wyoming's vacation areas, residents are pounding nails, not looking for seasonal jobs such as potato harvesting, which pays only a few dollars an hour.

Idaho's unemployment rate is 3.3 percent, and just 2.3 percent in eastern Idaho's potato country.

Migrant laborers are needed, the potato industry says.

"I wouldn't for a minute argue that we should just have an open border," said Keith Esplin, director of Potato Growers of Idaho, a lobby representing 250 growers. "But I think what this does show is that we really need to have a guest worker program. There really are people in Mexico who would like to come up for a few months and work."

It's unlikely Hoopes and Esplin will get what they want before the Nov. 7 elections.

A spokesman for Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, who has been pushing the Senate's immigration bill, said the focus in the two-month election run-up will be on border security, as Thursday's House vote indicated.

Only after that will reform efforts with guest-worker provisions stand a chance, said Dan Whiting, Craig's spokesman in Washington.

Craig knows how rancorous the issue is: In August, the senator was screamed down by foes of immigration reform in Coeur d'Alene.

"There's not the political will in Congress right now to pass comprehensive reform," said Whiting. "The anti-immigration argument is a 10-second soundbite, but when you talk about the need for guest-worker programs, it takes you a good 10 minutes just to calm the crowd down."

U.S. Rep. C.L. "Butch" Otter, R-Idaho, who is running for governor, voted Thursday in favor of the fence measure. Had the Senate acted on the House's plan approved last December, he contends, debate over guest workers could have long since begun.

"The congressman has always said we need to streamline the process of bringing workers here legally that our employers need," said Mark Warbis, Otter's spokesman in Boise. "But right now, our first priority must be securing the border. If your boat is leaking, you don't start bailing until you plug the leak."

Give them work permits and makes sure they leave when the harvest is over if they are truly unable to get other workers.

waaaaaa..........

Well so true, if they really need them they can get the paperwork started for the work visa's!

Furthermore, with the construction boom in Idaho and neighboring Wyoming's vacation areas, residents are pounding nails, not looking for seasonal jobs such as potato harvesting, which pays only a few dollars an hour.

Legal Residents of Idaho or migrant workers?

I have been hearing that the housing boom is bust now. What has everyone else heard? Fox news had someone on Neil Cavuto and they talked about how incomes have been steadily slipping and reports of mortgage applications have dropped significantly.

Our local paper in the business section talked about how mortgages here have dramatrically dropped and some builders have been unable to finish some jobs for several reasons, not enough workers and simply unable to seel what they build, which is curtailing them from starting new projects.

Now when they mentioned the issue of lack of workers, right away I felt it was due to the increased threat of ICE raids on employers and the illegal worker they hire are afraid to show up to the job sites so they move on.

I went by a construction site today and had to stop and take a second look, all I could see were American construction workers on the site.

What a shock, American framers and cement workers. 25 of them.

We have noticed this gradual change as well. We watched as an old bowling alley was revamped, all by American workers, all speaking English.

We stood by many times just standing there, watching them work, debating if we should find the top guy and offer our thanks for hiring Americans. They finished before we could, but I think we will be asking the owners who did the job and then send them a letter of appreciation.

You people are lucky. In South Florida we have lots of illegals working construction projects. ICE has caught many that were actually working on city or county projects. At the same time there have been many construction accidents where those killed were illegals. Can you believe that some of the spouses of the illegals are actually filing lawsuits against the employer? This should be illegal.
The real estate market has slowed here as well. Most of it was due to investors buying new buildings and flipping them like stocks and the dumb builders still kept on building them. Now they cannot get rid of them and condo prices have fallen a little but they won't drop them much more as they are offering all kinds of things such as large screen TVs for new buyers.

Twenty million plus illegals already in the US and he can't find 15 potato pickers?

This must be a job lazy illegals won't do.

Harvesting Equipment

Most potatoes grown in North America are now harvested with mechanical harvesters (Fig. 1. Most harvesters are of the two or four row type that harvest directly into bulk trucks. Field trucks are often used to transport potatoes from the field to packing sheds, processing plants, warehouses, or storage.

Just what do the IA's do...drive the trucks???