More than 200 Organizations Sign on to Letter Opposing Rep. Goodlatte’s Immigration Bill

Farmworker Justice and the United Farm Workers, with more than 200 other organizations, sent a letter to House members today stating their opposition to the anti-immigrant and anti-worker approach to immigration reform in Representative Bob Goodlatte’s Agricultural Guestworker Act, HR 1773.

“We strongly oppose Chairman Goodlatte’s HR 1773 as an unworkable, anti-immigrant and anti-worker approach to our nation’s immigration problems. Relegating hard-working farmworkers to a permanent second class status apart from their families is contrary to our nation’s core values of freedom, equality and family unity,” reads the letter.

Goodlatte’s bill would allow employers to bring as many as 500,000 new agricultural workers into the country every year for seasonal as well as year-round work. The program offers minimal protections to U.S. workers against competition from these foreign workers, while imposing low wages and poor working conditions on guestworkers, who would have minimal legal remedies for violations of program requirements. The bill is fundamentally flawed because it fails to provide a roadmap to citizenship for undocumented farmworkers and their families.

“This bill stands in stark opposition to the Senate-passed bill which includes the balanced agricultural stakeholder agreement reached by the United Farm Workers and the Agricultural Workforce coalition,with the support of a bipartisan group of Senators. The hard-fought stakeholder agreement represents a win for agricultural employers, for farmworkers and for our national interest in a secure, safe food supply.”

Farmworker Justice and the United Farm Workers urge members of the House to oppose Goodlatte’s bill and instead support comprehensive immigration reform that includes the agricultural stakeholder agreement and a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented people in the United States.
 

Farmworker Justice and the United Farm Workers, with more than 200 other organizations, sent a letter to House members today stating their opposition to the anti-immigrant and anti-worker approach to immigration reform in Representative Bob Goodlatte’s Agricultural Guestworker Act, HR 1773.

“We strongly oppose Chairman Goodlatte’s HR 1773 as an unworkable, anti-immigrant and anti-worker approach to our nation’s immigration problems. Relegating hard-working farmworkers to a permanent second class status apart from their families is contrary to our nation’s core values of freedom, equality and family unity,” reads the letter.

Goodlatte’s bill would allow employers to bring as many as 500,000 new agricultural workers into the country every year for seasonal as well as year-round work. The program offers minimal protections to U.S. workers against competition from these foreign workers, while imposing low wages and poor working conditions on guestworkers, who would have minimal legal remedies for violations of program requirements. The bill is fundamentally flawed because it fails to provide a roadmap to citizenship for undocumented farmworkers and their families.

“This bill stands in stark opposition to the Senate-passed bill which includes the balanced agricultural stakeholder agreement reached by the United Farm Workers and the Agricultural Workforce coalition,with the support of a bipartisan group of Senators. The hard-fought stakeholder agreement represents a win for agricultural employers, for farmworkers and for our national interest in a secure, safe food supply.”

Farmworker Justice and the United Farm Workers urge members of the House to oppose Goodlatte’s bill and instead support comprehensive immigration reform that includes the agricultural stakeholder agreement and a path to citizenship for the 11 million undocumented people in the United States.