Posted on 07/01/2007 7:10:23 AM PDT by Behind Liberal Lines
Although Yates County farmer Maureen Marshall hires her immigrant workers through the state's Department of Labor, her farm has been raided by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement twice in the past 10 years.
“We document everyone and do everything above the law but we have a system that's broken,” Marshall said.
Marshall and other members of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigrant Reform have been pushing for a guest worker program reform for more than a decade. This year, she thought that at last the U.S. Congress was close to passing legislation that could help farmers across the nation.
“We've been working on this for 11 years. We are in a crisis situation,” Marshall said.
But last week's defeat of an immigration reform bill in the U.S. Senate has the farm industry troubled.
As immigrant workers wait in a seemingly never-ending line for their chance to receive temporary worker status in the United States, farmers, including some in the local area, are battling to find a workforce. They're being forced to reach into the immigrant work pool, sometimes not knowing their employee's citizenship status.
The U.S. Senate on Thursday blocked the possibility for the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2007 to likely move any further until after the 2008 presidential election. The bill could have created an improved immigrant guest worker program, advocates said, adding it would have helped both immigrants and farmers. Opponents, though, said the idea of amnesty and allowing more immigrants into the United States reduces the domestic workforce and continues to funnel U.S. dollars out of the country.
Some local farmers, such as Sjana McClure-Berry, agree with those opponents of the bill.
McClure-Berry and three others, all U.S. citizens, farm the 800 acres of land McClure-Berry and her husband own in Genoa without the help from immigrant labor.
“Illegal immigrants are changing our whole society,” McClure-Berry said. “Americans do want these jobs, it's a very honorable profession.”
She said by continuing to hire a domestic workforce, she is also retaining money in the local area rather than sending it off to other countries.
“We've done this by choice of life. It's a moral decision. We only want to reap what it is we do,” McClure-Berry said.
But Marshall said that the labor force is changing in the United States and there are fewer people willing to take agricultural jobs.
“People aren't raising their children to be farmers,” Marshall said. “Farming is hard work and it's dirty. There are so many more options for people today.”
For farmers like Marshall who depend on the immigrant workforce, the legislation that may help this group of employers still remains in the hands of federal officials, though the likelihood of any action soon became bleak.
Since the legislation's introduction to the House and Senate, President George Bush has said he supported the need for immigration reform, saying it will secure American borders and help illegal immigrants without providing them amnesty.
During a June 14 speech to Associated Builders and Contractors, the president said that the need for reform is urgent and that the current system has failed and is broken, according to a copy of the speech.
The immigration reform act would establish a temporary guest worker program allowing immigrants to obtain a three-year temporary visa with one option to renew it for an additional three years. According to the legislation, the act will provide U.S. worker protection and the implementation of an alien employment management system and establishment of a temporary worker task force.
“The reality is we need a workforce to harvest crops,” said T. Mark James, executive director of the New York Farm Bureau Finger Lakes Office.
According to James, last year state farmers encountered a 30 percent decrease in farm labor due to immigration enforcement. James said he had no numbers this year but said he anticipated a larger decline.
Marshall said it's very difficult to find large numbers of domestic workers qualified for the work required on farms.
“We can't just take people from the welfare roles. (Farming is) a skill,” Marshall said.
“Cayuga County relies on immigration because locally there is not reliable source of labor otherwise,” James said. “It's a never-ending cycle. There's a pure lack of labor and if you have consistent turnover it's not good for our economy.”
Farm Bureau, a national organization, supports the legislation. They say the current system is broke.
The current H-2A guest worker program provides immigrants the opportunity to take jobs that U.S. citizens aren't taking.
“A workable system to document immigrants is what we're looking for. The current system is very cumbersome with a very large backlog of paperwork,” James said. “We want a more simplified program that works with technology.”
Farm Bureau members continuously advocate the government to authorize an improved guest worker program. A reformed program, they believe, will shorten the amount of time it takes to get an application approved.
“There has to be a reasonable time frame to get these visas approved,” James said.
But a Syracuse immigration lawyer doesn't feel that new legislation will be able to expedite the system.
“The farmers I talk to are concerned in a number of ways. The H-2A system is very cumbersome and most farmers don't use it because it becomes too costly,” said Sharon Ames, of Ames Immigration, who has focused solely on immigration law for eight years.
Ames explained that the proposed legislation highlights two types of visas immigrant workers may try to obtain.
The temporary Y-Visa would be valid for six years, requiring the immigrant to go home for one year in between every two-year work period. But Ames predicts that the country would have a hard time documenting this, preventing immigrants from being forced to go home every two years.
“The reality is that they're not going to go home after six years. It makes no sense for workers and employers who are now comfortable with their work ability,” Ames said.
Under the Z-Visa, immigrants could apply for permanent status for four years, including those that already reside in the country illegally. Every four years the person will have the opportunity to renew the visa at a cost.
Associated with the Z-Visa is the word “amnesty,” a word widely used in organizations that oppose the legislation and believe it awards those who currently live illegally in the country.
Ames believes what the legislation proposes isn't amnesty, due to the fines and numerous requirements that must be met to receive legal status.
But organizations like the Federation of American Immigration Reform believe that this area of the proposed legislation will provide pardons to people who have already moved to the country illegally.
“Legislation in the Senate is outright amnesty for millions who broke the law,” said Ira Mehlman, FAIR media director. “The bottom line is people broke the law in order to live and work in the U.S. and that's what they'll get.”
FAIR is a national non-profit organization of concerned citizens who share a common belief that the nation's immigration policies must be reformed to serve the national interest, according to the FAIR Web site.
Mehlman said the fines illegal immigrants will have to pay aren't that hefty and that the English and U.S. history classes they will have to complete are something everyone desiring legal status in the country should learn.
“Enforce the laws you already have is all we're asking,” Mehlman said.
What's funny, however, is the fact that the headline says just that, but the body of the article quotes at least two farmers who prove it wrong.
Ya know, if Maureen had just raised marijuana we’d have had just cause to take her farm. Too bad that law doesn’t include any business that uses illegal labor.
I do favor a guest worker program for agriculture, meat packing and food processing. I want this food to be grown and processed in America, not Mexico. The guest worker program would have to be very strict with some wages held back until they return to Mexico and other countries. Plus you cannot bring families here
“We can't just take people from the welfare roles. (Farming is) a skill,” Marshall said.
The man speaks out of both sides of his nouth. We need cheap labor, unskilled...and those willing to do the "dirty" work.....but farming is a skill and we don't want to take domestic people off welfare and teach them a new trade? *shakes head*
O woe of woes.
No more lettuce.
How will we survive?
This could be a national crisis.
We must be addicted to lettuce because we are told over and over how we need millions of illegals to pick lettuce.
Now, we are going to need a Federal program to help us overcome our addiction to lettuce since we won’t have millions of illegals coming into pick the lettuce.
I’m already shaking at the thought of the withdrawal symptoms.
Buck up, people! Just say ‘no’ to lettuce! We can overcome the addiction. We will eat cole slaw, instead.
Yup, so Americans don’t want to do these types of jobs. We all want computer jobs for middle class wages. So when the banks and all the insurance companies, and all the multi-national corporations offshore all of these jobs to generate more profits, what will we all do then? If nobody understands technology in 10 - 20 years, how will we continue to lead the world in defense technology? I guess we can offshore our military, right? We can outsource it to communist China, they would probably be the cheapest. What a brilliant plan.
Lots of unemployed n upstate NY and 30,000 homeless in shelters in NYC every night. She can learn to train people.
Plus there would have to be a health screening since they would be working with our food products.
Cancel welfare and get all Americans back to work.
“We can't just take people from the welfare roles. (Farming is) a skill,” Marshall said.
How much skill does it take to sneak up on a head of lettuce? Yes, farming is a skill. It takes a lot of skill to know how to run the tractors, chose what to plant this year, select your seeds, plant, fertilize and prevent plant and animal pests from taking over. However, that is not what the temporary (whether legal, illegal or native) farm workers are used for. They are primarily used for the big burst of work right at harvest when the only skill you need is how to pick the vegetable or fruit you're harvesting.
Same as raising the min. wage. Minimum wage goes up which in turn causes the price of everything else to go up. The only thing that goes down is the value of our hard earned savings. In other words, we're worse off than we were before.
I did plenty of farm labor in Oregon when I was young. All of it could be taught to an 8-year-old in 10 minutes. Canneries in Oregon routinely hire anyone off the street with two hands and at least one eye. Keeping the job, of course, requires a willingness to work.
The same thing was said at the end of the Bracero program by tomato farmers, and look what happened: The industry modernized and [i]increased[/i] productivity.
They'll also be more able to move to other jobs which are steadier and pay more like construction. I had a great Schadenfreude feeling when a Georgia onion farmer complained that all of his Mexicans ran off to New Orleans for reconstruction jobs.
That's why farmers want limited agriculture only temporary visas rather than general temporary visas, so their Mexicans don't run off for better jobs and pay.
Last week, Greenville On-line, had a report about several cases of TB in one chicken plucking plant in Greenville SC. There were several hundred illegals that tested positive for exposure. I post it here, but it was taken down because you cannot post their articles.
They already have that, they just don't want to comply with the rules.
>>>Help wanted: Farms can’t fill jobs<<<
Michael Chertoff, is that you?
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1857288/posts?page=71
Tancredo Sends Head of Lettuce to Chertoff
And then America will be flooded by yet another tidal wave of poor illiterates, that we get to pay for, who we will be told are here to do the jobs the Mexicans won't do.
It is a simple skill, at best. Certainly within the skill levels of welfare recipients with minimal training.
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