Free Republic

The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating how five people arrested on immigration charges qualified for licensing tests for the FAA's high-level repair licenses. FAA administrators are looking into documents used by the five in seeking the right to test for Airframe and Powerplant certification, FAA spokeswoman Kathleen Bergen said. The A&P license allows mechanics to work on the more complex parts of a plane. "To our knowledge, they all passed the written, oral and practical tests," said Bergen, who works at the FAA's Atlanta regional office. It's permissible for foreigners to test for an A&P license as long as...

YAKIMA — Some farmers in Eastern Washington are looking to hire as many as 1,000 seasonal farmworkers from Mexico under a federal guest-worker program, as concerns about a labor shortage this season heighten. Last year, a severe drought in the Yakima Valley, as well as reduced crop size, enabled growers to avert a serious labor shortage, by most accounts. Still, two employers were able to justify hiring 90 workers from Thailand to harvest apples under the federal H-2A program, which allows farmers to bring in foreign workers if they can prove a labor shortage exists. This year's unprecedented recruiting comes...