Posted on 10/07/2007 9:43:52 AM PDT by Dubya
WASHINGTON -- With a nationwide farmworker shortage threatening to leave unharvested fruits and vegetables rotting in fields, the Bush administration has begun quietly rewriting federal regulations to eliminate barriers that restrict how foreign laborers can be brought into the country legally.
The urgent effort, under way at the U.S. departments of Homeland Security, State and Labor, is meant to help farm owners caught in a vice between an impossibly complex process to hire legal guest-workers and stepped-up enforcement that has reduced the number of undocumented planters and pickers crossing the border.
"It is important for the farm sector to have access to labor to stay competitive," said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel. "As the southern border has tightened, some producers have a more difficult time finding a work force, and that is a factor of what is going on today."
(Excerpt) Read more at star-telegram.com ...
Methinks the writer's Freudian slip is showing. Vise - vice.
So when did the border get tight? How many illegal aliens does it take to pick a head of lettuce? 20 million or 50 million. Will we send those illegal aliens back that are not on a guest worker program?
Again Bush is sneaky.
Does anyone have a picture of those rotting fields????????
Big fat lie right from the get-go. The people who work in these fields ARE ALREADY HERE. Geez, LA Times, if you're going to lie to me, at least respect me enough to tell me something good that I'm not going to immediately see through.
What about the 4,000 or so white Zimbabwean farmers?
Do I really need to read beyond this point? I don't think so....
Bush is not serious about securing the borders. I’ll be glad when he’s gone.
Sell America for a buck patriotism.
I’m sure there are plenty of able-bodied folks on the unemployment line who could pick vegetables (instead of opening the flood gates for illegals).
And why not let those idle prisoners in the prison system work the fields? Fresh air and work would be good for them.
What happened to common sense in this country?
Why do we even need guest workers when we are paying unemployment to citizens and high school kids sit around all summer with little to do?
Non-violent prisoners could also be hired out if they pose no flight risk.
My guess is, especially in the case of unemployment compensation, many would have far shorter claims if they had to work a few days in the fields near their homes to qualify for unemployment.
“And farmers in areas such as California’s San Joaquin Valley, which is experiencing a 20 percent labor shortfall, worry the administration’s changes will not happen soon enough for the 2008 growing season.”
And precisely how has it been established that the SJV is experiencing a 20% shortfall in labor? And we’re worried about the 2008 harvest?
And, as has already been asked, when did we secure the border, and just what actions have supposedly caused a farm labor shortage?
Jorge and his administration has zero credibility on this issue with many Americans and Republican voters. I find it impossible to believe a single thing anyone in the Jorge executive branch says about immigration.
Don’t trust, but verify.
But I doubt we have in place the means to verify all these assertions, and I know we don’t have in place in the Jorge administration any desire to be truthful on this issue.
If the 30 million “illegals” already running around here can’t get the crops harvested,what makes the Bush Admin. sure letting in a few million more is going to get the job done ???
One person could do the work of one hundred.
This is crap. I live in a heavily Ag area and we are swamped with Mexicans.
The problem is that too many of the 30 million or so are too busy collecting welfare, engaging in MS-13 activities and organizing or participating in demonstrations to demand their rights to colonize. Plus there are those working construction, landscaping and doing things which pay so much better than harvesting crops.
I'd support a sensible guest worker program if it was first accompanied by meaningful enforcement in getting rid of gang members, reconquistadoras and welfare cheats.
Unfortunately what's coming is not any better.
Exactly. They really think we are idiots.
The 30 million that are here now... are in the shadows..according to Teddie Kennedy..
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