Thread: Eastern Washington farm hires 300 Jamaican workers

Updated May 24, 2010 - 5:38 pm
Eastern Washington farm hires 300 Jamaican workers
Comments (1)

MyNorthwest.com Staff

A farm in Eastern Washington is employing hundreds of Jamaican workers to replace the illegal immigrants it lost after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation last year.

Gebbers Farms in Brewster, WA, which grows apple and cherry trees, is hiring 300 workers from Jamaica through the H-2A visa program, issuing temporary agricultural visas.

Gebbers Farms is certified through the Department of Labor to hire foreign workers.

Mike Gempler, with the Washington Growers League, told KIRO Radio's Dave Ross, that US citizens get the opportunity to apply for the jobs, but that the farm still didn't find enough Americans to harvest its fruit.

Gempler said, "The problem is there's no guarantee that the people looking for jobs now will have legal documents. So you have businesses that are subject to enforcement actions by Department of Homeland Security."

Gempler added that Jamaica has a long history of sending people to the U.S. for farm jobs. "I think they just wanted to try out this particular program."

Jamaica's Minister of Labour and Social Security, Pearnel Charles, held a ceremony to send off the first 50 farm workers May 5. Another group departed the island May 12 and the remaining employees will leave June 3.

According to the Jamaica Observer, Charles said it was the "conduct and performance which would determine whether their contracts are renewed at the end of the six-month period."


http://www.mynorthwest.com/?nid=11&sid=324409

Is Gebbers Farms going to take responsibility for the behavior of these people while they are temporarily in our country?

Of course not.

And do these Jamaican workers have health insurance and workers' comp? Will they be driving to work, licenses and insured? Will the company pay for housing? Or will 300 more immigrants become dependent on our good will?

What a crock of stuff. Unemployment is 9 percent in that area.

Hell, a craigslist ad wasn't even cited.