Farmworker Justice OpEd: Rep. Gibson (NY) Has A Choice

As the debate over immigration policy takes center stage and lawmakers in the Senate pursue the hard work of compromise, Rep.Chris Gibson, R-Kinderhook, has a choice. He can support immigration policy that improves conditions for farmworkers, agricultural employers and consumers, or he can aggravate existing problems in the agricultural labor market and displace thousands of farmworkers, many of them U.S. citizens.

The Senate's approach to comprehensive immigration reform includes a bipartisan, labor-management compromise on agriculture. The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., last month rejected that compromise. Instead, it approved Goodlatte's "Agricultural Guestworker Act," which would expand employer access to exploitable and cheap guestworkers. Doing so would pave the way for employers to hire foreign guestworkers over U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, while making life even harder for those currently harvesting crops across the country. The bill is both anti-U.S. worker and anti-immigrant; it needs to be stopped.

While undocumented immigrants compose more than half of the farm labor force nationally, there are still hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents working on farms in New York and the nation. The provisions in this flawed bill would give incentives to employers to displace these U.S. workers by providing access to cheap, exploitable guestworkers. It's bad for U.S. workers and for the guestworkers left to do the work.

New York's farms, which generate almost $4.4 billion annually in value from dairies, fruit orchards and other agricultural products, are important contributors in the state's economy.

Gibson surely is aware that for decades some New York growers of apples and other crops have used — and sometimes abused — Jamaican, Mexican and other foreign workers under the H-2A agricultural guestworker program.

It's time to modernize agricultural labor by granting undocumented farmworkers already hard at work a road map to a true immigration status and citizenship. The Goodlatte Agricultural Guestworker Act does just the opposite by marginalizing farmworkers. Undocumented workers already working in the fields would essentially be required to self-deport with only the hope of obtaining a new job offer and guestworker visa. The bill would cause farmworkers with spouses and children living here in the U.S. to suffer separation and hardship.

The Goodlatte program would allow employers to bring in 500,000 new agricultural guestworkers per year in addition to those undocumented workers who return home and are brought back on guestworker visas. Neither the current undocumented farmworkers nor the future farmworkers would have the opportunity to earn immigration status and the freedoms of citizenship.

There is a compelling alternative to this one-sided bill. The Senate's immigration reform bill includes a compromise for agriculture that has broad support and resulted from months of difficult negotiations between major agribusiness groups, organizations like mine that assist farmworkers and a bipartisan group of senators.

The Senate bill would stabilize the farm labor workforce and ensure a secure food supply by granting experienced undocumented farmworkers and their family members who meet eligibility an opportunity to keep working, obtain legal immigration status and to earn lawful permanent residency.

That's a more humane and sensible approach. Gibson should push for it.

Goodlatte claims his bill would put "farmers in the driver's seat," but instead it's essentially throwing the men and women who are working on farms and ranches today under the bus. The farmworkers putting food on our tables deserve better. Instead of pushing them farther into the margins of society, it's time we acknowledge their value and honor their difficult work.
 

As the debate over immigration policy takes center stage and lawmakers in the Senate pursue the hard work of compromise, Rep.Chris Gibson, R-Kinderhook, has a choice. He can support immigration policy that improves conditions for farmworkers, agricultural employers and consumers, or he can aggravate existing problems in the agricultural labor market and displace thousands of farmworkers, many of them U.S. citizens.

The Senate's approach to comprehensive immigration reform includes a bipartisan, labor-management compromise on agriculture. The House Judiciary Committee, chaired by Rep. Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., last month rejected that compromise. Instead, it approved Goodlatte's "Agricultural Guestworker Act," which would expand employer access to exploitable and cheap guestworkers. Doing so would pave the way for employers to hire foreign guestworkers over U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents, while making life even harder for those currently harvesting crops across the country. The bill is both anti-U.S. worker and anti-immigrant; it needs to be stopped.

While undocumented immigrants compose more than half of the farm labor force nationally, there are still hundreds of thousands of U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents working on farms in New York and the nation. The provisions in this flawed bill would give incentives to employers to displace these U.S. workers by providing access to cheap, exploitable guestworkers. It's bad for U.S. workers and for the guestworkers left to do the work.

New York's farms, which generate almost $4.4 billion annually in value from dairies, fruit orchards and other agricultural products, are important contributors in the state's economy.

Gibson surely is aware that for decades some New York growers of apples and other crops have used — and sometimes abused — Jamaican, Mexican and other foreign workers under the H-2A agricultural guestworker program.

It's time to modernize agricultural labor by granting undocumented farmworkers already hard at work a road map to a true immigration status and citizenship. The Goodlatte Agricultural Guestworker Act does just the opposite by marginalizing farmworkers. Undocumented workers already working in the fields would essentially be required to self-deport with only the hope of obtaining a new job offer and guestworker visa. The bill would cause farmworkers with spouses and children living here in the U.S. to suffer separation and hardship.

The Goodlatte program would allow employers to bring in 500,000 new agricultural guestworkers per year in addition to those undocumented workers who return home and are brought back on guestworker visas. Neither the current undocumented farmworkers nor the future farmworkers would have the opportunity to earn immigration status and the freedoms of citizenship.

There is a compelling alternative to this one-sided bill. The Senate's immigration reform bill includes a compromise for agriculture that has broad support and resulted from months of difficult negotiations between major agribusiness groups, organizations like mine that assist farmworkers and a bipartisan group of senators.

The Senate bill would stabilize the farm labor workforce and ensure a secure food supply by granting experienced undocumented farmworkers and their family members who meet eligibility an opportunity to keep working, obtain legal immigration status and to earn lawful permanent residency.

That's a more humane and sensible approach. Gibson should push for it.

Goodlatte claims his bill would put "farmers in the driver's seat," but instead it's essentially throwing the men and women who are working on farms and ranches today under the bus. The farmworkers putting food on our tables deserve better. Instead of pushing them farther into the margins of society, it's time we acknowledge their value and honor their difficult work.