Group Launches Campaign Against E-Verify For Ag

A consortium of community advocates, political leaders and farmers recently launched a campaign called Save America’s Food and Economy (SAFE) to protect farms and agriculture from the impact of H.R. 2164, otherwise known as the Legal Workforce Act.

Introduced by Rep. Lamar Smith (R-TX), H.R. 2164 mandates all U.S. businesses, including farms, use the electronic E-Verify database managed by the Department of Homeland Security. SAFE, fighting to secure the future of America’s farms and foods supply, argues that the bill must be modified to accommodate experienced migrant farm workers. The campaign supports the need for farms to hire experienced guest workers — who comprise more than 80% of America’s agricultural workforce. The campaign says these skilled, seasonal farm workers are the backbone of U.S. agriculture, and their labor sustains hundreds of thousands of farm-dependent U.S. jobs belonging to workers who would also be displaced if H.R. 2164 were enacted.

SAFE is a new public awareness campaign complete with website, saveamericasfood.org, social media tools and an extensive grassroots operation. It says it represents the combined efforts of the agricultural industry encouraging support for a long-term, stable and legal farm workforce for America’s 2.2 million farms. Saving farms also saves countless local communities, small businesses and families that rely on the agricultural industry as an economic lifeline, the group says. The agriculture sector accounts for nearly 2% of national Gross Domestic Product and supports 15% of the economy as a whole. ◆