Posted on 07/30/2011 2:57:06 PM PDT by Steelfish
Farmers Oppose G.O.P. Bill on Immigration
JESSE McKINLEY & JULIA PRESTON July 30 Calif. — Farmers across the country are rallying to fight a Republican-sponsored bill that would force them and all other employers to verify the legal immigration status of their workers, a move some say could imperil not only future harvests but also the agricultural community’s traditional support for conservative candidates.
The bill was proposed by Representative Lamar Smith, a Texas Republican who is the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee. It would require farmers — who have long relied on a labor force of immigrants, a majority here without legal documents — to check all new hires through E-Verify, a federal database run by the Department of Homeland Security devised to ferret out illegal immigrants.
Farm laborers, required like other workers to show that they are authorized to take jobs in the United States, often present Social Security numbers and some form of picture ID. Employers, many of them labor contractors providing crews to farms, have not been required to check the information and are discouraged by antidiscrimination laws from looking at it too closely. But it is an open secret that many farmworkers’ documents are false.
Supporters of E-Verify, an electronic system that is currently mandatory for most federal contractors but voluntary for other employers, argue that it would eliminate any doubt about workers’ legal status. But farmers say it could cripple a $390 billion industry that relies on hundreds of thousands of willing, low-wage immigrant workers to pick, sort and package everything from avocados to zucchini.
“This would be an emergency, a dire, dire situation,” said Nancy Foster, president of the U.S. Apple Association, adding that the prospect of an E-Verify check would most likely mean that many immigrant workers would simply not show up.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Today’s farmer isn’t the same as your Grandparents. Both my parents grew up on farms. My Father on a subsistence one. Mother grew up on a huge one but they all worked all day. I lived on one until I was 5.
I had always liked farmers until I lived in Western Kansas for 5 years. To my surprise, no one liked them and that was real farming country.
Typically they spent all their time complaining about the government while driving brand new 4wd pickups and new luxury cars.
All of them were getting all kinds of government subsidies.
The farmers are lying, there is 14 different programs to bring in illegal labor to work crops, the thing is the farmers want the cheap under the table illegal labor.
The federal governments interest is to allow Illegal immigration for tax revenue and a expanded voter base.
Truth is painful.
The American Sheep are too drugged and blinded to care to stop it.
70 - 100 million tax paying Americans were aborted since Rove v Wade as well as their aborted tax paying prodigy numbering into generations.
Somewhere in ancient texts these same words have already been written.
Human history repeats it stupidity.
This is why Libertarians like CATO and Stossel must be ignored in any immigration debate. They are 100% detached from reality, and don't even heed their own idols such as Milton Friedman, who said you cannot have open borders with a welfare state (which we have in spades, even for illegals).
Farmers want their crops farmed and harvested. I know, I am one. The amount of labor dollars as a percent of the selling price of a pound of fruit is not material. I would glady pay double what I pay now for a secure source of labor because I can pass those costs on without greatly effecting the retail price to the consumer. It is naive to believe that the issue is money. People say if you increase the pay then you can get all the labor you want. Farms are in rural communities where there aren’t large population bases. South Carolina tried hiring welfare recipients and parolees to work in the field. About 1/3 quit after a couple of hours and the majority of the rest didn’t show up the next day. I want the borders secure as much as the rest of you but I also want to support my family, protect the business I have given my life to and to ensure that America isn’t importing all of it’s food from other countries. The answer is to guard our borders and put a viable guest worker program in place. Don’t know where you have worked NotLib Zone but you are very off base in your statement. This is a very difficult problem and to dismiss good hard working people who work the land as just greedy is flat out wrong.
So these farmers do not mind having criminals working for them ? Are they not even concerned about the safety of their product ? From what I have seen here in Kalifornia, the employees that hire illegals experience the greatest number of robberies and thefts. When those illegals get desperate, they go to the places they know.
Your question raises a very good and generally misunderstood point dhs12345. When a prospective employee walks into my office looking for farm labor work and presents what appears to be a valid identification I hire him just as someone would hire someone at Microsoft. I submit all of the required paperwork to federal and state agencies and I pay wages and taxes as required by law. That is what every farmer I know does. I recognize there are bad players out there who take advantage of people and smuggle them in backs of trucks and pay below minimum wage but they are the minority. The law used to require us to notify the employee if we received a no match letter from SS and it was the employee’s responsibility to contact SS and get it corrected. If I terminated an employee because I receive a no match letter then I have opened myself up to a discrimination lawsuit. Bush tried to change the no match procedure to have the employer resolve the discrepancy with the SS but law suits from immigration groups and democrats derailed that. So even though I am completely following the law as it now exists, well meaning people including those on this board believe the farmer is the criminal here.
Here’s what happens: The farmers have to pay a LOT more, maybe twice as much - Americans WILL do that work, for a price. Food goes up in price, maybe 20%. I don’t have a problem with that, if the Illegals really do go home. I do have a concern about whether those prices wind up increase our food imports...that must be prevented.
So if I wanted to get a job off the books, I can just give a farmer a bogus SSN and not worry about the number being valid?
See, there you have it.
The Mexican migrant labor situation in California has been cruel in the past, just don’t know about the present situation. Those laborers were treated by the farmers in a very inhumane manner.
Someone I knew whose family came west from Oklahoma during the Depression told me his whole family used to work as migrant farm labor in the 30s, 40s, 50s and on into the 60s. He went to trade school, became an electrician and bought a home for a stable type of life. But sometimes he’ll dream about the poverty of growing up as farm labor, and he would wake up sweating.
“...When a prospective employee walks into my office looking for farm labor work and presents what appears to be a valid identification I hire him just as someone would hire someone at Microsoft...”
Oh, boy; you haven’t looked for work lately.
All employers are demanding proof that you’re legal, either a citizen or legal resident (green card), and are doing background checks. These laws are meant to protect you from a lawsuit.
Quit making excuses.
You do know that there are programs for temporary Visas where Mexicans can legally work in the fields but must return to Mexico when the Visa expires.
We employ Mexican workers who live in Mexico and commute. There is nothing illegal about it. They come to the US in the morning and return to Mexico in the afternoon. We also employ as many local, legal Americans or Mexicans with work Visas, who show up.
I hope this bill crashes and burns anyway. It raises the bar very high to prove illegal hiring and it preempts local state efforts. CAPS is not supporting it and our group in Houston is warning against it. Numbers USA is completely OFF THEIR ROCKER ON THIS BILL. Grassley’s version is fine. Smith’s bill will destroy the recent SCOTUS ruling on E-Verify whereby localities have a right to enforce. STEER CLEAR!
I do not think it is the job of employers to verify the legal status of their employees.
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absolutely!
we have politicians publicly giving sanctuary, and stopping deportation, of KNOWN illegals.
ICE releases CRIMINAL illegals on bond, and thinks they will show up for hearings?
and yet farmers should be the policmen?
besides, Milton Friedman explained it all long ago.
simply stop giving LEGAL benefits to ILLEGAL immigrants,
and the problem disappears.
you don’t even need to “deport millions”.
they will leave themselves.
the INSANE increase in minimum wage, helped CAUSE the recession. (40% increase in 2 years?)
Government causes the problem.
drop minimum wage. stop GIVING tax dollars to ILLEGALS.
problem solved.
Well, according to Sen. McLame, if we don’t let illegal aliens pick produce, we will have to pay $10 for a head of lettuce. /s
Farming is changing.
I will be buying produce seasonally, by and large, and buying local. As this trend spreads, this is going to be tough on large-scale farmers who sell to wholesale distributors, but selling to people who will pick their own or buy from you directly will alter the demand for migrant farm labor.
Right now my 19-year old nephew is out of work. He has ranch experience and is willing to do heavy labor. No one will hire this strapping, 6-foot young man either for ranch work or farm labor.
I want to see farmers succeed, but not at the expense of the tax-paying public being saddled with millions of illegal aliens receiving welfare.
The following video describes a housing project - $225Million - the residents of which are primarily illegal aliens on social security. It is located in Tacoma, WA.
ELABORATE WELFARE HOUSING PROJECT
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fu6ok5ykyuQ&feature=youtu.be
I understand and agree.
We had a talk by a big CA commercial farmer and he said that the reason the AG Visa program is not used is because illegals undercut the wages of the visa workers. If E Verify were enforced..then they would all have to hire visa workers and pay higher expenses. Not just wages, but visa fees, housing etc. It would also make the jobs more attractive to citizens and permanent residents.
So they were all for it.
They had to do something after emancipation.
Agreed. Too bad for the subsidy junkies.
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