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  1. #1
    Senior Member JohnDoe2's Avatar
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    Trump reassures farmers immigration crackdown not aimed at their workers

    Mon May 15, 2017 | 10:00am EDT

    Trump reassures farmers immigration crackdown not aimed at their workers




    Migrant farmworkers with H-2A visas walk to take a break after harvesting romaine lettuce in King City, California, U.S., April 17, 2017. REUTERS/Lucy Nicholson

    By Mica Rosenberg and Kristina Cooke | WASHINGTON/SAN FRANCISCO

    President Donald Trump said he would seek to keep
    his tough immigration enforcement policies from harming the U.S. farm industry and its largely immigrant workforce, according to farmers and officials who met with him.


    At a roundtable on farm labor at the White House last month, Trump said he did not want to create labor problems for farmers and would look into improving a program that brings in temporary agricultural workers on legal visas.


    "He assured us we would have plenty of access to workers," said Zippy Duvall, president of the American Farm Bureau Federation, one of 14 participants at the April 25 meeting with Trump and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue.


    During the roundtable conversation about agriculture, farmers and representatives of the sector brought up labor and immigration, the details of which have not been previously reported. Some farmers told Trump they often cannot find Americans willing to do the difficult farm jobs, according to interviews with nine of the 14 participants.


    They said they were worried about stricter immigration enforcement and described frustrations with the H-2A visa program, the one legal way to bring in temporary seasonal agricultural workers.


    The White House declined to comment on the specifics of the discussion, but described the meeting as "very productive." The U.S. Department of Agriculture did not respond to a request for comment on the April meeting.


    About half of U.S. crop workers are in the country illegally and more than two-thirds are foreign born, according to the most recent figures from the U.S. Department of Labor's National Agriculture Workers' Survey.


    During the roundtable, Luke Brubaker, a dairy farmer from Pennsylvania, described how immigration agents had recently picked up half a dozen chicken catchers working for a poultry transportation company in his county.


    The employer tried to replace them with local hires, but within three hours all but one had quit, Brubaker told the gathering at the White House.


    Trump said he wanted to help and asked Secretary Perdue to look into the issues and come back with recommendations, according to the accounts.


    While other issues such as trade, infrastructure and technology were also discussed, participants were more positive after the meeting about the conversation on foreign labor "than about anything else we talked about," said Bill Northey, a farmer and Iowa's secretary of agriculture.


    RED TAPE

    Tom Demaline, president of Willoway Nurseries in Ohio, said he told the president about his struggles with the H-2A guestworker program, which he has used for 18 years.

    He told Trump the program works in concept, but not in practice. "I brought up the bureaucracy and red tape," he said. "If the guys show up a week or two late, it puts crops in jeopardy. You are on pins and needles all year to make sure you get the workers and do everything right."


    While use of the program has steadily increased over the past decade, it still accounts for only about 10 percent of the estimated 1.3 million farmworkers in the country, according to government data. In 2016, the government granted 134,000 H-2A visas

    Employers who import workers with H-2A visas must provide free transportation to and from the United States as well as housing and food for workers once they arrive. Wage minimums are set by the government and are often higher than farmers are used to paying.

    Steve Scaroni, whose company Fresh Harvest brings in thousands of foreign H-2A workers for growers in California's Central valley, says, however, that he could find work for even more people if he had more places to house them.


    For a related photo essay click on: reut.rs/2qdtfnb

    Trump recently signed another executive order titled "Buy American, Hire American," calling for changes to a program granting temporary visas for the tech industry, but not to visas used by farmers and other seasonal businesses, including Trump's own resorts.

    FARMER CONCERNS
    Trump also signed two executive orders, just days after taking office, focused on border security that called for arresting more people in the United States illegally and speeding up deportations.

    Roundtable participants said that many farmers have worried about the effect of the stepped up enforcement on their workforce, but Trump told them his administration was focused on deporting criminals, not farmworkers.


    "He has a much better understanding about this than some of the rhetoric we have seen," said meeting attendee Steve Troxler, North Carolina's agriculture commissioner and a farmer himself.


    The farmers at the meeting said they stressed to the president the need for both short-term and permanent workers. They said there should be a program to help long-time farmworkers without criminal records, but who are in the country illegally, to become legal residents.


    Last Tuesday, Democrats in the House and Senate said they would introduce a bill to give farmworkers who have worked illegally in the country for two consecutive years a "blue card" to protect them from deportation.


    Brubaker, the Pennsylvania farmer, said he liked what he had heard about the bill and hoped it would get the president's support to make it a bipartisan effort.


    "The administration has got something started here," he said of the meeting with farm leaders. "It's about time something happens."


    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-farmers-trump-idUSKCN18B1BB

    NO AMNESTY

    Don't reward the criminal actions of millions of illegal aliens by giving them citizenship.


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  2. #2
    MW
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    They said they were worried about stricter immigration enforcement and described frustrations with the H-2A visa program, the one legal way to bring in temporary seasonal agricultural workers.
    Yep, they want to keep their cheap labor. The H-2A visa program is more costly for them.

    "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" ** Edmund Burke**

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  3. #3
    Senior Member Judy's Avatar
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    I understand why farm workers would not be targeted by Trump at this time. There are other far more important priorities. However, I oppose the DemoQuack "blue cards", they need to hire workers with the "red card" under the legal existing H2A farmworkers program. Period.
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    MW
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    We need to show these farmers harboring illegal labor some tough love. Maybe raiding their farms and deporting the illegals will force the farmers to utilize the legal avenues provided to them for labor. The Trump administration needs to show them that everyone must follow our written laws!

    Many of the farms today are big business. Why would you crack down on the manufacturing industry, construction industry, etc. and completely ignore the agricultural industry? Everyone needs to obied by our immigration laws and that includes the farmers! There is no excuse for making exceptions to the law.

    "The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing" ** Edmund Burke**

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    I think that we need to make it clear that the migrant worker visa programs are not immigration programs. Like education visas, they are meant to allow exposure of foreigners to parts of our society and economy in order to benefit them and their country. It does not benefit their country of origin to become immigrants, even while it benefits our country for them to come in and work. And it does not benefit us to make them into immigrants.
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