Immigration spills into farm bill politics
Promise of legal status stymies some support for AgJOBS proposal
By PHILIP BRASHER
Gannett News Service

WASHINGTON - The U.S. Senate has had enough trouble trying to write a farm bill as it stands, but there's one issue that could complicate matters further - immigration.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., pledged in June to try to add provisions to the farm bill for farm workers who are here illegally.

Now, backers of the farm worker legislation, known as the AgJOBS bill, are trying to round up the 60 votes needed to overcome a filibuster.

The legislation could benefit produce growers and dairy farms as well as custom harvesters and seed companies, who rely on foreign workers to detassel corn.

Under the bill, immigrants could obtain legal status if they have been working on farms for at least two years. More than 800,000 workers, plus their spouses and minor children, could qualify. The legislation also would overhaul a visa system that farmers say is too restrictive and costly.

"It would provide American agriculture with a stable work force that is treated fairly and ensure a productive agricultural sector," says Bruce Goldstein, executive director of Farm worker Justice, an advocacy group.

But Reid's promise, which he made to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on the Senate floor, won't be easy to fulfill.

Farmers have been warning that crops will rot in the fields if they don't get more workers, or some production is going to move out of the country.

But immigration is a toxic issue for many in Congress after failure of the Bush administration's broader overhaul. Republicans have warned that the farm worker bill would need major changes.

A federal judge last week took some heat off farmers and other employers by temporarily blocking a rule that they fire workers whose names don't match their Social Security numbers.

The Senate agriculture committee is set to take up the farm bill the week of Oct. 22, three months after the House passed its version of the bill. The committee's chairman, Sen. Tom Harkin, is a co-sponsor of the farm worker legislation. But he already has been struggling to get agreement on a range of issues, from subsidy levels to conservation and rural development, and he has no plans to include immigration in his draft legislation, according to his staff.

The American Farm Bureau Federation supports the farm worker legislation but doesn't want it added to the farm bill.

"The issue of immigration itself is problematic," said Paul Schlegel, who follows the issue for the Farm Bureau. "The farm bill, given its own difficulties with the budget and other things, we don't think lends itself being a vehicle to resolve that issue."

But there aren't many other options for AgJOBS advocates.

"The farm bill establishes our policies for the agricultural sector. Farm workers should be included in the farm bill," Goldstein said.

Craig Regelbrugge, who co-chairs a coalition of agribusiness groups pushing for the farm worker provisions, puts it this way: "While we're worrying about finding money for (agricultural) disasters, we've got a labor disaster under way."

If the farm worker legislation "has the votes, it doesn't kill the farm bill," he said. "If it doesn't have the votes, it falls away."
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