milcon
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., left, and Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, participate in a news conference on agriculture and immigration reform, Tuesday, May 15, 2007, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
Posted on 05/17/2007 10:55:07 AM PDT by NormsRevenge
WASHINGTON - Severe farmworker shortages that have left tons of fruits and vegetables unplanted or unpicked would get a fix under an immigration reform deal reached by senators Thursday.
The immigration agreement includes a pilot legalization program for agriculture workers, said Scott Gerber, spokesman for Sen. Dianne Feinstein (news, bio, voting record), D-Calif.
Farmers say that as immigration enforcement has tightened in recent years, worker shortages have ranged from 10 percent to 30 percent across the labor-intensive produce industry and have also struck dairy farms and nurseries.
In some cases crops have gone unharvested. In others, farmers have chosen not to plant, or have reduced plantings of the most labor-intensive crops, such as asparagus. Economic losses have been estimated in the millions.
"We're looking at deterioration of the work force and the inability of people to survive. We're looking at the failure of farms and small businesses," said Craig Regelbrugge, co-chair of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform.
The "AgJobs" measure pushed by Feinstein and Sen. Larry Craig (news, bio, voting record), R-Idaho, would create a five-year pilot program to legalize immigration status for those who have worked in U.S. agriculture for at least 150 days over the previous two years.
The program would be capped at 1.5 million.
The immigration deal, painstakingly negotiated between a group of Senate Democrats and Republicans and the White House, still faces tough going to become law.
Currently the farm labor force in the United States numbers about 1.6 million, according to people in the industry, and some 70 percent are estimated to be illegal.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., left, and Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, participate in a news conference on agriculture and immigration reform, Tuesday, May 15, 2007, on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
What a load. I live in Atlanta. We don’t have any farms nearby and we sure don’t need the truckloads of illegals hanging on all the corners while their anchor babies and chicas get hit crossing the highway.
Why can’t idle unemployed unskilled Americans do this kind of work? I know it’s hard physical labor, but........if they are unskilled, unemployed, and hanging out on street corners or worse, why can’t we compel them to do some of this type of work? why is there an automatic unspoken assumption that we should recruit foreigners to do it?
Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits, and Security Act (AgJOBS)
S.359
http://thomas.loc.gov/home/bills_res.html
Farmers can be paying a market wage as well.
ping
Coming soon: Please Press 2 for English.
The laws of economics still work just fine. Use them.
I guess the farm bill of 2002 isn’t working well?
2 Thessalonians 3:10
For even when we were with you, this we commanded you, that if any would not work, neither should he eat.
Here’s a solution that solves several problems:
1. Cut off welfare and any other such “benefits” for any and every able-bodied urban outdoorsmen.
2. Tell them the payments will resume — to be paid by the farmers — if they get on the trucks to the farms needing their labor.
3. Use the more intelligent among them to assist in rounding up the 12 million CRIMINAL INVADERS and helping deport them;
4. During those periods when those farms don’t need their labor, put them to work building and maintaining a double fence along the border;
And if any of you lurking libs/Dimocrap Underground types reply that this is “involuntary servitude” prohibited by the Constitution
A. What about the involuntary servitude to which America’s producers are subjected via an income tax which redistributes OUR resources to those who didn’t earn them and
B. When the hell did the Constitution mean anything to you socialists/statists as you push to scrap it and collectivize the U.S.?
Because our large contingent of welfare addicts has been allowed to get so large and so self-satisfied that they would riot if they were told their future checks and housing subsidies and food stamps were subject to their performing agricultural (or any) labor.
Roger that. I have to dodge 3 or 4 Hispanic J-walkers every time I travel Buford Highway thru Chambodia.
That would make far too much sense.
well, we can’t have rioting can we? Better to have people living in squalor and blame their problems on Bush.
Why is Bush blamed for the problems of the ghetto that were exemplified by New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina? The ghettos of America were hell holes when Clinton was president, and nothing was said then. Why do we talk about these things only when a Republican is president?
well, we can’t have rioting can we? Better to have people living in squalor and blame their problems on Bush.
Why is Bush blamed for the problems of the ghetto that were exemplified by New Orleans and Hurricane Katrina? The ghettos of America were hell holes when Clinton was president, and nothing was said then. Why do we talk about these things only when a Republican is president?
I see Juan and Jesus all the time working on construction, farms, etc. Get ready for the demographic change, and remember to press one for English. If we ever have to press 2 for English, watch out.
No, but you used to have a lot of cotton plantations that had a labor shortage after emancipation.
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