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July 11, 2006

Fear in the fields

Two of Michigan's largest industries -- agriculture and tourism -- worry about their livelihoods as the immigration debate unfolds.

Sarah Ryley / The Detroit News

TRAVERSE CITY -- It's just past the crack of dawn, and already a few dozen farm workers are fanned out in the field, backs bent or squatting as they pick strawberries from plants just a few inches off the ground. They move quickly down the rows, standing upright only to rush their full pails to a flatbed truck at the edge of the crop, then hurry back to fill another one.

The cool air from Lake Michigan weighs on the rolling green hills of the Leelanau Peninsula, with the gnats biting at legs until the sun comes out in full force. When vacationers and retirees start traipsing out to the beaches, these migrant workers will still be picking strawberries at Bardenhagen Berries farm, and they won't stop until at least 5 or 6 p.m.

At least 40,000 migrant farm workers come to Michigan every year in search of a paycheck, mostly during the warm months. As the first of this summer's public hearings on the immigration debate gets under way across the nation, Michigan farmers say their crops are on the line because American workers won't harvest them.

Numerous Michigan farm owners pleaded their case during congressional hearings in Washington, D.C., earlier this year, telling lawmakers that they need an expanded, more efficient guest worker program. They say the current H-2A program, which regulates visas for guest workers in the agricultural industry, is costly and time consuming, and often fails to send skilled workers in time for harvest.

They support Senate legislation that would double the number of immigrants allowed into the country each year to 2 million and raise the caps on guest workers. And they oppose House legislation that would deport all illegal immigrants and keep guest worker programs the way they are.

Lawmakers are trying to hammer out a compromise that will have major implications for Michigan's farm industry.

"Our goal is to have a 100 percent legal work force," says Josh Wunsch, owner of Wunsch Farms in Traverse City. He estimates that he lost $50,000 worth of fresh product last year when H-2A, operated by Homeland Security, failed to send him workers three weeks into his harvest, after he spent 120 hours and $10,000 on the application process. "Every time we go to Congress, they say, 'You guys quit crying, there is a guest worker program,' " says Wunsch, also vice president of the Michigan Farm Bureau, who was among those to lobby in Washington. "Well, I used it, and it didn't work."

Unemployment rate cited

Opponents of an expanded visa program say the country needs to think first about national security and the weak economy, which has left a large number of workers unemployed.

Estimates vary of the percentage of migrant workers in Michigan who are undocumented. The Pew Hispanic Center says 24 percent, The Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Development estimates 50 percent, and workers asked say it's closer to 80 percent.

"I'm trying to be sensitive to the plight of farmers -- there are a lot of them in my district," says U.S. Rep. Candice Miller, R-Shelby Township, who voted for the tough House bill. "But I would say that the majority of people want our immigration laws enforced."

Thaddeus Kaczor Jr. of Wyandotte is one of those people. He says illegal immigrants who demand less from their employers negatively affect everyone. "Allowing in a large influx of people that are willing to work for such ridiculously low wages drives down wages to the point where Americans don't even want the jobs."

Wages vs. price tag

Tony Picelo, 31, a migrant worker on the Bardenhagen Berries farm who swam across the Rio Grande River with his family when he was 13, says the money, though low by American standards, is worth the risk. "In Mexico, there's a lot of work, too, but we don't get paid that much," said Picelo, who says he has a temporary visa.

The workers at Bardenhagen get $2.70 for every pail of strawberries they carry back to the flatbed truck. That works out to about $10 an hour for a skilled harvester.

An unskilled worker, or one that's not willing to work hard and fast, won't harvest enough in an hour to equal the state's minimum hourly wage, set to increase from $5.15 to $6.96 in October. But no matter the workers' productivity, the farmers have to pay the minimum, which they say cuts into their already thin profit margins.

If farmers charge more for their product to make up for higher wages, cheap foreign produce would take over the market and put local farmers out of business, says Jim Bardenhagen, who works closely with growers and migrant workers as director of the MSU Extension Center for Leelanau County.

Not necessarily, argues John Keeley, director of communications for the Center for Immigration Studies, and a supporter of tough immigration measures. He points to Australia's robust agricultural industry, which relies on mechanized harvesting and higher wages to avoid a heavy influx of illegal immigration.

"The growers in this country have never been put in that position," Keeley said. "They've basically become addicted to cheap labor."

He says the farm industry can attract American workers by raising wages without a noticeable price difference at the market. "If Americans are willing to descend into the coal mines, which is very tough and dangerous work, they'd be willing to harvest crops for the right price."

Many work 60 hours a week

Al Steimel is the general manager of Leelanau Fruit Co., where some of the strawberries harvested earlier in the day are being processed by dozens of workers along a maze-like assembly line.

"In 1984, when I started, I had (only) one family of migrant workers, and now it's just the opposite. I only have a handful of local people," Steimel says.

The local residents who used to work at his plant prefer summer jobs in restaurants or on boats, he says, and don't want to work the long hours a robust harvest season sometimes requires.

"When we tell (the migrant workers) that we have to work overtime or through the weekend, they don't complain, they cheer. They're here to make money."

He says employees start at $6.35 an hour and get paid overtime, but most make more hourly because they come back year after year.

Most migrant workers average 50 to 60 hours a week, says Daniel Inquilla, managing attorney of Farm Worker Legal Services, which handles about 1,000 complaints a year. Most are about wages.

Inquilla says most farmers and plant managers follow regulations and treat their workers fairly, "but just like in any industry, there are a few bad apples."

Schools reach out to kids

Kim Sanchez, 18, is a first-generation American. Her parents migrated from Mexico to California, where she was born, and settled in Suttons Bay 11 years ago. She works on the assembly line, while her mother, Julia Rivas, 38, inspects fruit after it's packaged. In the winter, Sanchez works with her father pruning apple and cherry trees.

Sanchez says she plans to go to college in the fall through a program that funds the first year of college for students who are migrant workers or the children of migrant workers.

"I know my dad works for a living." She pauses, then looks at her mother sitting next to her, also dressed in white with an apron tied around her waist. "I don't take things for granted. I don't ask for too much. I know what my parents can give me."

Robert Collier, director of the summer migrant school for Leelanau and Benzie counties, tries to help close the gaps in education for migrant students, who often attend three to six schools a year.

But that doesn't matter: The law requires that every child under 17 attend school.

"What we see is that their families are frightened, yet wanting to make a living and willing to risk a lot to make a better life. So they are very diligent in getting an education for their children."

But the cost of that education and other social services -- health care, welfare, food stamps and housing -- is another big reason the nation should tighten immigration laws, Rep. Miller contends.

"It may be inexpensive labor for (the farmer), but let me tell you, it is not free for the American taxpayer," she says.

Supporters of loosening the laws note that immigrant workers -- legal or not -- pay taxes that help fund those services.

But many won't use any services out of fear of getting caught, says Rick Olivarez, state monitor of the migrant worker program for the Michigan Department of Labor and Economic Development.

"These workers, they don't want a free hand; they come here to work for their money."

You can reach Sarah Ryley at (313) 222-2536 or sryley@detnews.com.