Thread: Feinstein won't add Ag Jobs to farm bill

Ok, another article about AgJOBS; Feinstein is dropping it for now, but she said "she will ask Majority Leader Harry Reid to schedule floor time for Ag Jobs either later this year or early in 2008."

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Monday, November 5, 2007
Feinstein won't add Ag Jobs to farm bill

California senator acknowledges she doesn't have the votes to get her measure passed by lawmakers who see it as an amnesty program.
By DENA BUNIS
The Orange County Register

WASHINGTON - The losing streak for those who want to see a broadening of immigration benefits continued today when Sen. Dianne Feinstein decided she could not successfully add the Ag Jobs bill to the farm bill being debated on the floor this week.

"When we took a clear-eyed assessment of the politics of the farm bill and the defeat of the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform, it became clear that our support could not sustain these competing forces," Feinstein, D-Calif., said in a statement.

The Ag Jobs bill would allow many undocumented immigrant workers to get legal status and would also start a new temporary program for future farm labor.

Feinstein has been trying for years to get this bill passed, either on its own or as part of the two comprehensive immigration packages that have gone down to defeat in the past two years.

After several weeks of courting her colleagues, it became clear to Feinstein that she didn't have the 60 votes she'd need to overcome an expected filibuster by opponents who consider Ag Jobs an amnesty that they don't want. Even some supporters of her measure didn't want to see it muddy up a complex farm measure.

"The farm bill is riddled with conflicting politics," said Craig Regelbrugge, co-chair of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform, which has been working with Feinstein on the Ag Jobs effort.

The farm measure strikes such a delicate balance between crop subsidies and nutrition programs such as Food Stamps that even Agriculture Committee Chairman Sen. Tom Harkin, D-Iowa, who has supported Ag Jobs, made it clear that he didn't want the measure on his bill.

"I am going to resist any effort to put immigration in this bill," Harkin said at a press conference last month announcing that he had a deal to bring a farm measure to the floor.

Without Ag Jobs, Feinstein said in her statement today, "we will continue to see labor shortages far into the future. Fruit will rot. Crops will go unharvested. Operations will be forced to cut back or move to Mexico."

Regelbrugge said beginning in 1999 the United States became a net food importer. Most Americans, he said, don't see first hand what has happened to the family farm.

But opponents of Feinstein's measure insist that if growers paid higher wages there wouldn't be a labor shortage.

"When we started this effort, we knew it was an uphill battle because immigration reform is such a hot button issue," Feinstein said.

The failure of the DREAM Act, which would have provided legal status to students who were brought here as young children, who graduated from high school here and went on to college or the military, was another indication that getting any immigration expansion passed this year was going to be close to impossible.

But Feinstein said she isn't giving up. She will ask Majority Leader Harry Reid to schedule floor time for Ag Jobs either later this year or early in 2008.

When the comprehensive immigration bill failed in June, Reid promised Feinstein he'd allow Ag Jobs to come up for a vote on its own.

http://www.ocregister.com/news/feinstei ... -farm-jobs

On Dobbs right now...

Dobbs talking with Lisa Sylvester, was mentioning about Feinstein and her apparent shying away from introducing AgJobs as part of Farm bill.

Lisa Sylvester said something close to this:

"Well, I can tell you we had a lot of difficulty in getting through to her office to comment on this... most likely because her office was busy taking calls on this very issue".

Thanks for your hard work everyone who called, faxed etc. Lets be ready when she tries to bring this back...

This clearly illustrates why we must continue to hammer them. Our efforts have made a difference!

*Bursting with pride* Way to go American Patriots!!!!!!!!

Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive and don't ever apologize for anything.â€

Giving legal to farm workers will not solve the shortage of farm workers. There will still be a shortage and more would be needed year after year because they would not be satisfied with doing farm work year after year. That is the reason there is a shortage now. They may work one season and then they move on to better jobs. If they were given legal status, they would have to bring new workers year after year.

SPECIAL THANKS TO ALL YOU PATRIOTS WHO CALLED, FAXED AND EMAILED. It is your dedication and persistance that is keeping amnesty from taking place and is even keeping them from bringing it up. I am sure there is going to be another round however with the dedication and perserverance we have shown I know we will win it as well!!! KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!

Moving to News.

ADDED TO HOMEPAGE!


http://www.alipac.us/article-2698--0-0.html