Citizenship path: Letter to the Editor in Houston Chronicle

Citizenship path

Regarding "Do something!" (A modest fix before immigration reform), the editorial correctly admits that comprehensive immigration reform is the only way to truly solve the labor problems that we face in agriculture, but it fails to sufficiently address the underlying flaws with any guestworker program, including the one you applaud in Canada.

Canada's seasonal agricultural workers program, which has its share of labor abuses, may provide a higher quality of life for its farmworkers than current systems in place in our country, but any program that lacks a fair path to citizenship will continue to disadvantage both growers and farmworkers.

Growers will inevitably continue to experience labor shortages, while farmworkers will still be left without full protections of their rights.

U.S. workers suffer, too, as these programs incentivize employers to hire vulnerable and easily exploited guestworkers at below-market wage rates, rather than Americans and other legal workers willing to do the jobs. As the editorial suggests, for a system to be viable, all parties involved must find the program workable. This is exactly what the Senate has produced – a tough compromise between growers and workers that acknowledges that the measures included would benefit both parties as well as consumers. That is the reform we all should be advocating.

The U.S. House of Representatives needs to act now.

Regarding "Do something!" (A modest fix before immigration reform), the editorial correctly admits that comprehensive immigration reform is the only way to truly solve the labor problems that we face in agriculture, but it fails to sufficiently address the underlying flaws with any guestworker program, including the one you applaud in Canada.

Canada's seasonal agricultural workers program, which has its share of labor abuses, may provide a higher quality of life for its farmworkers than current systems in place in our country, but any program that lacks a fair path to citizenship will continue to disadvantage both growers and farmworkers.

Growers will inevitably continue to experience labor shortages, while farmworkers will still be left without full protections of their rights.

U.S. workers suffer, too, as these programs incentivize employers to hire vulnerable and easily exploited guestworkers at below-market wage rates, rather than Americans and other legal workers willing to do the jobs. As the editorial suggests, for a system to be viable, all parties involved must find the program workable. This is exactly what the Senate has produced – a tough compromise between growers and workers that acknowledges that the measures included would benefit both parties as well as consumers. That is the reform we all should be advocating.

The U.S. House of Representatives needs to act now.

Bruce Goldstein, president, Farmworker Justice, Washington, D.C.