Thread: Immigration Overhaul May Hit Farms

Immigration Overhaul May Hit Farms

Bid for Easier Path to Citizenship for Agricultural Workers Faces Setback
By DAVID ROGERS
May 10, 2007; Page A5

WASHINGTON -- As immigration overhaul teeters in the Senate, the White House and lawmakers are back facing the issue that started the whole debate: the treatment of undocumented immigrant farm workers.
More than any other interests, Western growers and the United Farm Workers were early to put aside their differences and close ranks behind legislation that promised the industry a stable labor force and field workers a chance to begin to move toward citizenship.
Dubbed AgJOBS, the bill has steadily gained bipartisan support in Congress over the past six years as a pilot program of sorts for larger immigration reform. Under AgJOBS, illegal-immigrant farm workers who have cleared criminal checks would first get blue-card visas to establish temporary residency. To move up the next step to permanent residency, a worker would have to stay in agriculture, working at least 150 work days annually for three years, or 100 work days annually for five.
But with President Bush wanting a more comprehensive approach appealing to conservatives, workers are being asked to make concessions to help AgJOBS conform with the legislation being negotiated in the Senate.
At the heart of the debate is the question of how far the government should go to accept individuals who entered the country illegally but are otherwise law-abiding workers important to the economy.
Critics argue that any forgiveness smacks of the controversial "amnesty" granted during the 1980s. AgJOBS seeks to address this complaint by confining itself to about 1.5 million workers with a proven record of agriculture employment who are willing to remain on farms over the next three to five years to qualify for permanent residency.
But the emerging Senate bill covers all workers and imposes a longer waiting period of eight years before such immigrants can qualify for green cards and permanent residency. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the former Senate Agriculture Committee chairman who comes from Georgia's cabbage patch, also wants to loosen wage protections negotiated by the union with Western growers.
At the same time, producers worry that the Senate legalization plan is so broad that farm workers will leave their fields for less arduous jobs in urban areas.

"We're not deviating from our desire to get AgJOBS," says Tom Nassif, president of the Western Growers Association, which is flying members here next week to lobby on the issue. "We have to make sure that when we get workers, they stay in agriculture. You can't apply all the rules to every industry."
The White House argues that AgJOBS must adjust to the more comprehensive, economywide package. But as tensions rise in the Senate, farm workers and producers worry about their industry-specific deal being dragged aboard a sinking ship.
The stage was set months ago when Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) pledged two weeks of Senate floor time for a full debate on immigration, beginning Monday. But despite a huge effort, the White House will miss this deadline to produce a draft bill, and is still struggling to put together its "grand bargain" with Republican and Democratic senators.
"We're working, we're working," said Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff this week. But Sen. Jon Kyl of Arizona, the Republican point-man in the Senate on the issue, said he is "less sanguine about the possibility of getting this done before Memorial Day."
An impatient Mr. Reid served notice yesterday that he instead will call up last year's Senate immigration bill as the starting point for the debate. That bill badly split Republicans a year ago, with Mr. Kyl among its chief critics, saying it lacked adequate enforcement.
Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) urges all sides to "stay at the table" with the White House in hopes of getting an agreement. But Democrats say Mr. Bush must become more personally involved if a deal is to be salvaged.
"We need a workable system. That's the bottom line," says Sen. Edward Kennedy (D., Mass.) "There are some things being proposed that will make the system impossible to work."
Mr. Kennedy is among the lead AgJOBS sponsors, as is Rep. Howard Berman (D., Calif.). Together, the two men are pivotal if any immigration legislation is to be enacted in this Congress.
The intensity of the issue for both was seen last week when they left a meeting in the Capitol with Mr. Chertoff. Mr. Berman, rushing to the airport, had jumped out of his car at a traffic light to take off his jacket. Suddenly, Mr. Kennedy's van loomed alongside. The senator got out in the midst of traffic to talk some more about the immigration issues.
On the administration side, Mr. Chertoff is adamant that farm workers, like all other undocumented workers, wait at least eight years before qualifying for permanent residency. The administration has discussed giving a leg up to farm workers to get their green cards faster after this waiting period. Industry officials worry about whether, in a new package, the rules won't be as strong in requiring farm workers to stay in agriculture during these eight years.
Equally important are federal wage rates set for the H-2A temporary farm-worker program, designed to set a pay floor for immigrant workers. These have grown so high that more farmers have turned to illegal immigrants, who are paid less. To make the H-2A system more workable, labor agreed to roll back the rates to 2003 levels, then keep them frozen for three years while a new wage system is put in place.
This rollback is worth as much as $1 an hour in states like Georgia. But Mr. Chambliss has pressed for more long-term changes to move to a more localized "prevailing wage" standard, under which some farm workers might be paid less.
"It's a good deal for my guys but it's not the best deal they can get," he says of the AgJOBS wage package. "The prevailing wage allows California to pay what's appropriate for them, us pay what's appropriate for us."
But Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Farm Workers, wants AgJOBS to stand. "They didn't get everything they wanted, we didn't get everything we wanted," he says. "But we're happy with what we got, and we're going to push to keep that compromise intact."
"You have to be realistic what you ask of farm workers," he says of the larger choices between AgJOBS and the bill being negotiated by the White House. "In the end they are going to realize what we've come up with makes a lot of sense."

sounds like a bunch of time wasted do nothing run around harbor tactics, that will screw America and give criminals a free ride. :evil