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Honduran president Jose Manuel Zelaya Rosales and representatives from El Salvador and Guatemala met with California farmers Saturday to hash out a plan that will train laborers from those countries to work in the Western U.S. The plan is set to start with about 300 workers from Mexico and Central America. It will operate under existing U.S. guest worker laws and take at least a year to implement, said Manuel Cunha Jr., president of the Nisei Farmers League, a group that represents hundreds of agriculture businesses in California, Washington, Oregon and Arizona. Growers plan to work with Latin American countries...

Victory For Grassroots Americans Grassfire has confirmed that ALL amnesty language has been stripped from the Iraq Supplemental Spending Bill – the result of tens of thousands of phone calls, faxes and fast action by a number of key Senators who sent a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid demanding the language be dropped. This happened as a direct result of grassroots actions. Thank you! The Letter from Sen. Jim Inhofe’s office reads: Dear Majority Leader Reid: We write to express disappointment that the Senate Appropriations Committee chose to include in the War Supplemental more than 100 pages of immigration...

CONGRATULATIONS! You have achieved what some believed to be nearly impossible last week. The AgJOBS amnesty has been stripped from the Iraq Supplemental bill. Here's more good news: the employment-based permanent workers have been stripped from the bill too! Unfortunately, the H-2B low-sill worker increase is still in the Iraq Supplemental so your phone calls are still needed... Our Capitol Hill team heard initial reports late last night that the AgJOBS amnesty had been stripped from the bill, but we wanted to await confirmation of that before reporting back to you. Apparently Senate Majority Leader Reid and other Senators were...

This is why we keep close watch on Congress.  In a bipartisan effort accomplished quickly and virtually under the table, Sens. Diane Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sen. Larry Craig (R-Idaho) -- in Senate Appropriations markup of the War Supplemental bill -- obtained approval of an amendment that would create an amnesty for illegal alien farm workers.  The measure, called the Emergency Agriculture Relief Act, was added to the War Supplemental bill in a 17-12 vote last Thursday. Known as the AgJob amendment, the Feinstein-Craig measure revived instantaneously the controversy that caused conservatives to lash out at the White House and Congress last summer. ...

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein has changed her tune about using Iraq war spending bills to provide temporary legal status for illegal farmworkers.She used to think it was a bad idea. Not anymore.Next week, the full Senate is expected to consider an emergency spending bill that includes Feinstein's agricultural guest worker plan. If it survives, the guest worker package would offer temporary legal status to 1.35 million illegal immigrant farmworkers."This is an emergency situation," Feinstein, D-Calif., told Senate Appropriations Committee colleagues Thursday, adding that "agriculture needs a consistent work force. Without it, they can't plant, they can't prune, they...

The Senate Appropriations Committee on Thursday added to an Iraq spending bill a controversial provision to help pave the way for undocumented agriculture workers to win legal status, a move that may reopen the divisive immigration debate on the Senate floor. The so-called Ag-Jobs amendment, sponsored by Sens. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Larry Craig (R-Idaho), would create a process that allows undocumented workers to continue to work on farms. Without the amendment, Feinstein warned that the U.S. would lose $5-9 billion to foreign competition, tens of thousands of farms would shut down and 80,000 workers would be transferred to Mexico....

The Labor Department estimates that 600,000 to 800,000 immigrants are currently working illegally on America's farms. Many fear that the increase in internal immigration enforcement will have serious repercussions for the agricultural sector. In response to this problem, the AgJOBS Act of 2007 would have granted amnesty to the illegal immigrants who currently work in the agricultural industry. That approach was deeply flawed and irresponsible.The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and Department of Labor (DOL) are now taking the correct approach by proposing changes in the H-2A Visa program. H-2A Visas are temporary visas for nonimmigrant workers who perform agricultural...

California senator acknowledges she doesn't have the votes to get her measure passed by lawmakers who see it as an amnesty program. WASHINGTON - The losing streak for those who want to see a broadening of immigration benefits continued today when Sen. Dianne Feinstein decided she could not successfully add the Ag Jobs bill to the farm bill being debated on the floor this week. "When we took a clear-eyed assessment of the politics of the farm bill and the defeat of the DREAM Act and comprehensive immigration reform, it became clear that our support could not sustain these competing...

The debate over immigration amnesty could soon return to the Senate floor. Sen. Feinstein plans to attach AgJOBS to the Farm Bill Extension Act of 2007. The AgJOBS bill is all too similar to the comprehensive immigration bill that was rejected in Congress last spring which would have granted amnesty to millions of people who are unlawfully present in the United States. The AgJOBS legislation grants amnesty to agricultural workers who are currently unlawfully present in the United States. According to estimates, approximately 1.5 million workers would be granted "legalization," as well as an additional 1.8 million family members. [chain...

  The debate over immigration amnesty could soon return to the Senate floor. According to press reports, Senator Diane Feinstein (D–CA) plans to attach the proposed Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits, and Security Act of 2007 (AgJOBS) to the Farm Bill Extension Act of 2007. The AgJOBS bill is all too similar to the comprehensive immigration reform bill that was rejected in Congress last spring, which would have granted amnesty to millions of people who are unlawfully present in the United States. Amnesty would worsen the immigration problem in America, encouraging more illegal border crossings and undermining the credibility of American...

Farmers, immigrants and their Capitol Hill allies are hoping to graft an agricultural guest-worker plan onto the multibillion-dollar farm bill. Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-San Francisco, hasn't yet decided whether to push the controversial guest-worker measure when the Senate considers the farm bill next week. Behind the scenes, though, proponents are counting votes and lobbying furiously. "Now we're getting down to the nitty-gritty, where real hard decisions have to be made," said Dan Haley, a lobbyist for the California Strawberry Commission and other farm groups. "We can't wait around." Tactically, this is a very tough call. The decisions made in coming...

Labor provisions could be tucked into ag legislation. WASHINGTON -- Farmers, immigrants and their Capitol Hill allies are hoping to graft an agricultural guest-worker plan onto the multibillion-dollar farm bill.Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., hasn't yet decided whether to push the controversial guest-worker measure when the Senate considers the farm bill next week. Behind the scenes, though, proponents are counting votes and lobbying furiously."Now we're getting down to the nitty-gritty, where real hard decisions have to be made," said Dan Haley, a lobbyist for the California Strawberry Commission and other farm groups. "We can't wait around."Tactically, this is a very tough...

Washington, D.C. — Legislation that would grant legal immigration status to thousands of migrant farmworkers will likely be added to the Senate’s farm bill, said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

The DREAM Act Would Grant Amnesty to Millions of Illegal Aliens at the Expense of Middle Class Americans Trying to Get an Education Washington DC — Having been soundly repudiated by the American public in their effort to enact an amnesty program for millions of illegal aliens, Senate backers of the program are likely to attempt to sneak an amnesty bill proposal past the American people. Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic Whip, is expected to offer the DREAM Act as an amendment to the FY 2008 Defense Authorization bill next week. The DREAM Act, which has been introduced...

Senator to assure that farm legislation is a priority in today's Fresno appearance. WASHINGTON -- Get ready for another ride on the immigration roller coaster. Today, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein will be assuring a San Joaquin Valley audience that Congress will once more take up a big agricultural guest-worker bill. A top priority for Valley farmers, the bill soon could resurface on Capitol Hill. "Agriculture is going to push this thing," Manuel Cunha, president of the Fresno-based Nisei Farmers League, said Wednesday. The agricultural guest-worker package is getting its second wind two months after comprehensive immigration reform collapsed in the...

Senator predicts millions will lose jobs after Social Security crackdown. Pressure to pass immigration reform will intensify as millions of undocumented workers lose jobs as a result of a crackdown by the Social Security Administration, Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, said Thursday. "What will happen over the course of the next two months is several million workers will be laid off or fired and there is no one to take their place," Craig told the Boise Rotary Club. Craig said the Bush Administration is sending "hundreds of thousands" of letters to employers about bogus Social Security numbers. "Sorry, that name and...

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...

The provisions of the Gutierrez/Flake Amnesty: Every illegal alien who could produce marginally plausible “evidence” that he/she had been illegally present in the United States since June 1, 2006, would get amnesty and be put on the path to US citizenship. In exchange for the highest honor our country has to bestow, the illegal alien would have to pay $2,000, pass a criminal record check, pay at least some of any income taxes he/she had chosen not to pay while working illegally, and learn some English. The already overburdened and error-prone U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) would be responsible...

From the desk of Roy Beck at NumbersUSA: From the desk of Roy Beck at NumbersUSA: This year's official push for nearly open borders in the United States is expected to begin later this morning. Honestly, your collective reaction to the introduction of the Gutierrez/Flake amnesty bill in the U.S. House of Representatives will have great influence on whether national political leaders try to force this through. We need to do this primarily with phones today. We need the phones in all 435 offices of U.S. Representatives to be ringing all day in vehement opposition to what is being proposed...

Uncertain labor market, shortages increase some growers’ worries Cookson BeecherWashington State Staff Writer Southwest Washington berry growers experienced labor shortages so severe this year that some of them were forced to leave thousands of dollars of fruit in the field. They warn that labor shortages will likely intensify across the state in the coming years if Congress doesn’t pass some form of immigration reform that gives agriculture a legal work force. According to government statistics, more than half of all farmworkers are in the United States illegally. Jerry Dobbins, whose farm is near Vancouver, Wash., said that though he’s experienced...