Farmworker Justice Update – 01/12/18

Farmworker Justice Update: 01/12/18

Administration’s Focus on Agriculture and Rural Issues Ignores Farmworkers

On January 8, U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Secretary Sonny Perdue publicly released a report that had earlier been given to President Trump by the Interagency Task Force on Agriculture and Rural Prosperity. The publication of the report was timed to coincide with President Trump’s recent appearance at the American Farm Bureau Federation conference. The Task Force was created in response to an April 2017 Executive Order, with the objective of developing proposals for revitalizing rural America. The report is fundamentally flawed however, as it ignores the interests and needs of farmworkers and their families. Though it notes the agricultural sector’s reliance on immigrant labor, it does not address the need for a path to citizenship for agricultural workers, instead stating that the Administration may pursue regulatory reforms to the H-2A agricultural visa program. Farmworker Justice issued a statement regarding the report.

Agricultural Employers Increasingly Turning to Guestworkers for Labor

Though the President notably did not mention agricultural labor during his speech at the American Farm Bureau Federation conference in Tennessee, he did discuss the issue informally with some of the conference participants. As noted in a recent Los Angeles Times article, use of the H-2A agricultural guestworker program has continued to increase exponentially. Many employers are lobbying for changes to the program and/or the creation of a new guestworker program to strip away labor protections and reduce government oversight.

Goodlatte’s New Immigration Proposal Includes Agricultural Guestworker Bill

On January 10, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, Chair of the House Judiciary Committee, along with Representatives McCaul, Labrador and McSally, released a hard-line anti-immigration proposal entitled the “Securing America’s Future Act.” The bill incorporates the provisions of Rep. Goodlatte’s anti-immigrant, anti-worker Agricultural Guestworker Act (AGA), which he introduced in October 2017. As noted by Farmworker Justice’s Adrienne DerVartanian in an interview in Civil Eats, the AGA “would create a temporary workforce with no ability to become legal immigrants, who are completely dependent on their employers, and who have extremely minimal protection.” We previously summarized the AGA’s proposal for a terribly exploitative new H-2C agricultural guestworker program.

Rep. Goodlatte’s proposal also includes other anti-immigrant policies, including building a costly border wall, increasing arrests and deportations of immigrants, attacking sanctuary cities, and eliminating existing opportunities for family reunification as well as the diversity visa program. With this proposal, Rep. Goodlatte, a long-time immigration restrictionist, is trying to push his extreme anti-immigrant agenda and obstruct a much-needed solution for Dreamers. Farmworker Justice’s statement opposing Rep. Goodlattes’s Securing America’s Future Act is available here.

Dreamers’ Fate Continues to Hang in the Balance amidst Congressional Negotiations

On January 9, President Trump met with multiple Congressional leaders from both parties to discuss a possible solution to his rescission of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. Unfortunately, the meeting did not provide clarity on what a potential DACA compromise might be, or when it might be reached. Two days later, Congressional leaders met with Trump to present a bipartisan compromise on DACA and other issues of concern to the President, who reportedly questioned why the United States should allow immigrants from “shit-hole” countries, including Haiti, as contrasted with Norway. This Vox article provides a summary of these recent immigration negotiations, which are still unfolding.

Congress faces a January 19 deadline to pass a budget resolution, as the current continuing budget resolution, which was approved at the end of last year, expires on that date. The official rescission of DACA occurs on March 5, when thousands of Dreamers will lose their status, but thousands of Dreamers already have lost their status, with an average of 122 Dreamers losing their status every day. A clean Dream Act needs to be included as part of any new budget package. Furthermore, the fate of Dreamers should not be exploited in order to enact anti-immigration measures that will negatively impact Dreamers’ own families and communities.

Judge Temporarily Blocks DACA Termination

On January 9, a federal judge issued an order blocking the Trump Administration’s termination of the DACA program. The preliminary injunction was the result of an ongoing lawsuit regarding DACA, Regents v. DHS, and requires the government to continue to accept and process DACA renewal applications. However, by definition, a preliminary injunction is not a permanent solution, and the Administration will likely appeal the decision. Therefore, this litigation development should not distract from the urgency of Congressional action regarding DACA, as this is the only way to provide a permanent solution for Dreamers.

DHS Terminates El Salvador TPS Designation

In yet another devastating blow to our country’s immigrant community, on January 8 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) announced the termination of the Temporary Protected Status (TPS) designation for El Salvador within an 18 month period (by September 9, 2019). DHS terminated the TPS designations of three other countries (Nicaragua, Haiti and Sudan) last year, and the fate of the TPS designation for Honduras currently remains uncertain. El Salvador has the largest number of TPS recipients, with over 200,000 individuals, as well as over 190,000 U.S. citizen children with at least one parent who is a TPS recipient. This ill-advised decision will have significant adverse social and economic impacts, including in the nation’s capital, where about 40,000 Salvadoran immigrants hold TPS. Farmworker Justice participated in a rally outside the White House to protest the decision. Read Farmworker Justice’s statement on the announcement here.

Update on Farmworker Health and Safety

EPA Seeks to Undo Crucial Worker Protections Regarding Pesticides

As detailed in a recent Huffington Post article, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is preparing to roll back crucial worker protections regarding pesticides. The EPA has announced that it will soon begin a new rule-making process on certain provisions of the Worker Protection Standard (WPS) and Certified Pesticide Applicator (CPA) rules, both of which were recently updated after a decades-long, multi-stakeholder process. The key provisions that are now under threat, and which Farmworker Justice and other worker groups have long advocated for, include a minimum age of 18 for handling pesticides, the right to a representative that can access pesticide exposure information and the establishment of a pesticide application exclusion zone to prevent exposure to bystanders.

The EPA’s decision to reverse course on these worker protections is likely a response to lobbying from the American Farm Bureau, the leading industry group for growers, which has been pushing for a roll back of these protections for years. At its January 9 meeting, the Farm Bureau stated that it was hopeful that these worker protections could be repealed under the current Administration. These and other protections are necessary to prevent and respond to pesticide exposures among farmworkers and their children because they can cause a range of serious injuries and illnesses, including birth defects, cancer, infertility and neurological deficits.