Sunday Forum: Get on with immigration reform

[steelerbabe]

http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/07168/794542-109.stm



Sunday Forum: Get on with immigration reform
Farms and other agriculture-related businesses in Pennsylvania are short of help and can wait no longer for Congress to improve our beleaguered immigration system, says landscape contractor DAN EICHENLAUB
Sunday, June 17, 2007

Over the last several years, the immigration debate has sparked more heat than light. Just like a family debate around the dinner table, the loudest voices, not the most informed, have too often dominated the discussion. As usual in Washington, the result is a stalemate.



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Dan Eichenlaub is president of Eichenlaub, Inc., a landscape contractor serving Western Pennsylvania since 1974 (www.eichenlaub.com).



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But immigration remains too important an issue to leave unresolved. On that point alone, everyone agrees, regardless of their political persuasion. That's why the recent compromise engineered by liberals such as Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-Mass., conservatives like Sen. Jon Kyl, R-Ariz., and independent voices like our own Sen. Arlen Specter, R-Pa., is a measure worth supporting.

The operative word here is compromise -- a valued part of our nation's political tradition too often ignored in a Washington too divided by partisanship over the last several years. As Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., noted recently, politicians looking to smash the immigration compromise without first devising a workable alternative "are not doing this country a service."

The immigration compromise is complex and comprehensive. It is comprehensive because the Senate proposal addresses almost all of the issues affecting the millions of workers who have entered the nation illegally over the years.

But let's be clear on one central concern: This is not an amnesty bill. Its goal is to stop illegal immigration but without derailing our local and national economies or denying our heritage. As President Bush recently stated, the compromise would produce an immigration system that enforces realistic laws while upholding the American tradition of welcoming those who share our values and our love of freedom.

Yes, the legislation is complicated and the devil is indeed in the details. But the compromise does address the need for enforcement while including a temporary work program that is absolutely necessary for the survival of our agricultural economy.

Labor shortages are real. As I stated in testimony before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee last year, there simply are not enough native-born, available American workers to fully staff and grow my business or other agriculture-related businesses in Pennsylvania.

My company hires for hot, physically demanding seasonal work. Entry-level agricultural and manual jobs are, quite frankly, not the ambition of most young Americans. The lack of a workable agricultural labor program combined with overaggressive immigration enforcement constitutes a clear and present danger to the survival of Pennsylvania farms and the businesses they serve, including mine.

Timing is crucial. Farms and farm-dependant businesses like mine need help now. The existing H-2A visa program is complicated, expensive, unresponsive and plagued by expensive litigation. The H-2B visa program, which I use, is coming apart at the seams and completely failed many Pennsylvania businesses that were depending on H-2B workers this year. Most important, the fixation on arrival and departure dates of immigrant workers makes no sense in agriculture, where planting and harvesting times are influenced more by the weather than the dictates of bureaucrats in Washington.

For farms and farm-dependent businesses to survive in Allegheny County and the rest of Pennsylvania, Washington must act on immigration reform. The Senate compromise reached by pragmatists in both parties provides a workable solution to the nation's immigration problems. Without immigration reform, one of the nation's biggest problems will continue to fester as hardworking people are separated from jobs and families, and as America's economy and competitiveness suffer.

I believe the nation's farming communities will suffer the most if Congress fails to find a solution. But all Americans would be punished if we continue with an immigration policy that exports farms and imports foods. We must move forward and the Senate compromise is the appropriate first step.

I am contacting as soon as I am done posting, Would love to have others do the same.

[olivermyboy]

Farms and other agriculture-related businesses in Pennsylvania are short of help and can wait no longer for Congress to improve our beleaguered immigration system, says landscape contractor DAN EICHENLAUB

This is a bunch of crap-o. There is NO CAP on H2A visas for agriculture--these people are so disingenuous it's unbelievable--they just want to pay illegals substandard wages, that's all!!!

[gofer]

"Even in the sector of the economy in which illegal immigrants have the highest representation -- agriculture -- they are just 24 percent of the workers. Where did the other 76 percent come from, if these are jobs that Americans won't do?

The argument that illegal agricultural workers are "making a contribution to the economy" is likewise misleading.

For well over half a century, this country has had chronic agricultural surpluses which have cost the taxpayers billions of dollars a year to buy, store, and try to get rid of on the world market at money-losing prices.

If there were fewer agricultural workers and smaller agricultural surpluses, the taxpayers would save money. "
http://www.townhall.com/Columnists/Thom ... ud_part_ii

[SOSADFORUS]

Well I have an Idea, if it is such a big pain close up business and go to work for someone else, Do another business a favor who is having so much trouble finding labor.

Really don't worry about it because so many people are losing their homes and jobs or wages being depressed, there won't be much call for landscapers before long.

People will have to go back to doing their own yard work, and the housing industry is going to hell in a hand basket so won't be much landscaping in that area. WHINE, WHINE, WHINE people like you are the cause of it so live with it!!!

And the farmers won't have to worry because the middle class won't be able to afford to feed themselves before long so they won't have to grow as much