Thread: Few Hands in the Field? Immigration bill's plan for guest wo

Friday, June 8, 2007

Few Hands in the Field? Immigration bill's plan for guest workers to replace illegals won't work, N.C. growers say

By Gil Klein
MEDIA GENERAL NEWS SERVICE

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WASHINGTON

Edilberto Madrigal Valdez is an unusual sight in the farm fields of the South: He’s a Mexican farm worker who is legally in the United States.

Most farm workers in the United States, and nearly all in the South, are illegal immigrants, growers and legislators concede. Even among illegal immigrants, only those who have recently arrived are willing to do the hot, dirty, seasonal jobs.

As soon as they can find regular work in other industries, they move on.

Growers say that as the federal government clamps down on illegal border crossings, their labor supply is disappearing. They fear that their crops will rot in the fields and that agriculture will go overseas.

“You sell it or you smell it,â€

The "Christmas Tree" farms here, allow people to go in, pick out your own tree and cut it yourself.

Also the same with strawberry and other fruit farms around here.

I asure you this bill was not about workers for our fields...it was about the destruction of the middle class and our Country for the next move of the NAU...we have and have always had programs for migraint farm workers

As soon as they can find regular work in other industries, they move on.

Would this be because being paid slave wages doesn't work for illegals either? HMMMM???!!!!

My thoughts exactly, Dagmar.

At the grocery store last week grapes were $2.99#.

Since the farmers/ranchers are using illegals to avoid the $9.00 required for H2A holders, where's this money going.

moosey, in western NC Christmas trees are big business. They're shipped throughout the US.

One of the most shocking aspects of the "Immigration Reform Bill" is that it advocates the creation of a new slave class. These people would be allowed to come in and work for next to nothing without gaining the rights that their legal status should grant them.

I don't understand how anyone could promote the idea that we need more farm laborors and we need to pay them less. What's next? Forced labor camps?