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Labor Crisis Is Front and Center
Months after failing to pass comprehensive immigration reform, Capitol Hill lawmakers are revisiting the issue, hoping to pass narrower, more focused legislation such as AgJOBS. The AgJOBS bill (supported by SAF) provides a mechanism for agricultural workers to earn citizenship and also overhauls the broken H-2A guest-worker program.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) has promised he will schedule time for a vote on AgJOBS this fall, and Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) has become a vocal champion of the bill, according to Jeanne Ramsay, SAF’s senior director of government relations. In addition, chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, Rep. Collin Peterson (D-7-Minn.), has said he will hold hearings on the bill this fall.
The labor crisis in agriculture has made it into the mainstream media almost every day, and “both lawmakers and the public are seeing first hand there isn’t enough native-born labor to do seasonal agricultural work,” Ramsay says. A New York Times article recently reported that some growers have begun to grow crops in Mexico, as labor there comes without the threat of immigration problems. In July, Sen. Feinstein displayed a map on the Senate floor showing more than 46,000 acres that American growers are cultivating in the Mexican states of Guanajuato and Baja California, states the Times. View a slide show on the challenges of one California farmer.
Jim Lehrer’s Online NewsHour also recently featured a report on Colorado growers’ struggle with the worsening labor situation.
SAF sent out an Action Alert last week asking members to write their members of Congress and encourage them to support the AgJOBS legislation.
“One reason the Senate failed to pass immigration reform earlier this year was because opponents overwhelmed Senate offices with e-mails and faxes,” Ramsay says. “Those same opponents are now focusing their attention on AgJOBS.”
Ramsay says SAF will send several Action Alerts during the upcoming weeks. “We strongly encourage you to contact your senators and representatives — even if you have already done so.”
For more information, contact Jeanne Ramsay at jramsay@safnow.org; (800) 336-4743.
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