Immigration Policy Worries Farm Industry

According to Ag Professional, a plan to require all American businesses to run their employees through E-Verify, a program that confirms each is legally entitled to work in the U.S., could wreak havoc on an industry where 80% of the field workers are illegal immigrants. As could the increased paperwork audits already under way by the Obama administration.

“We are headed toward a train wreck,” said Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat whose district includes agriculture-rich areas. “The stepped up (workplace) enforcement has brought this to a head.”

Lofgren said farmers are worried that their workforce is about to disappear. They say they want to hire legal workers and U.S. citizens but that it’s nearly impossible, given the relatively low wages and back-breaking work.

Wages can range from minimum wage to more than $20 an hour. But workers often are paid by the piece; the faster they work, they more they make. A steady income lasts only as long as the planting and harvesting seasons, which can be measured in weeks.

“Few citizens express interest, in large part because this is hard, tough work,” said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsak. “Our broken immigration system offers little hope for producers to do the right thing.”

Vilsak and the American Farm Bureau Federation president, Bob Stallman, said in a recent conference call with reporters, that the best and likely only hope to stave off an economic catastrophe for American farmers and consumers is comprehensive overhaul of immigration policy. Vilsak said the industry is worth about $5 billion to $9 billion a year.

Without a broad overhaul in the works, industry officials have focused on improving the H-2A temporary agricultural workers visa program that’s aimed at allowing season workers to come and work on U.S. farms.

The program, however, is costly, time consuming and inefficient, according to Cathleen Enright, vice president of federal government affairs for the Western Growers Association.

There isn’t enough capacity in the system to process, interview and approve visa applications for the nearly one million seasonal workers who take to the fields every season. Farmers are required to pay for a worker’s transportation from their home country to the fields, provide housing and other benefits.

Lawmakers agree the visa program is problematic, but there’s a wide divide on how to make it workable. In 2009, Rep. Howard Berman (D-CA) and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) introduced legislation that would have given temporary resident status to immigrant farm workers and have created a path to legal residency for those workers after five years. ◆