A Step Towards Immigration Reform

[Tars]

Editorial from the May 21 Wall Street Journal:

Farm Help Wanted

"We're happy to see that some Members of Congress haven't given up completely on passing comprehensive immigration reform this year. Today the Senate is scheduled to consider the Emergency Agriculture Relief Act, which would give U.S. growers greater access to legal migrant workers. Naturally, this measure is being denounced in the usual quarters as an "amnesty."

The legislation, which is co-sponsored by California Democrat Dianne Feinstein and Larry Craig, the Idaho Republican, is designed to address the perennial shortage of farmworkers in the United States; today, some three-quarters of this work force enter the country illegally. The bill does not provide a path to citizenship for these undocumented foreign nationals, or even a green card. Instead it would allow illegal farm workers who are already here to receive temporary resident status (for five years) if they pay a fine, pass a background check and meet other requirements.

The bill would also reform the H-2A program now in place for foreign farm workers. The current program is a 20-step process that is so unworkable that it facilitates just 2% of the U.S. labor force in agriculture. The Feinstein-Craig legislation would streamline the process and remove bureaucratic hurdles that have resulted in such low usage. Growers would still be required to advertise for domestic workers and hire anyone who's available. But the steps and time frames would be dramatically reduced to increase participation rates.

The hotter this issue became in recent years, the more Congress dithered. That has had real consequences, as the agriculture labor shortage manifested itself repeatedly across the industry. Back in 2006, we saw pear crops in Northern California rot because migrant laborers couldn't be found in sufficient numbers. Last year, a single county in western Michigan lost a million pounds of asparagus. But the more insidious problem is that the labor shortage is impacting what is planted in the first place. Or not planted.

Some growers scale back on their harvesting; a crew moves through an orchard just once to pick the best fruit, instead of moving through the land multiple times to pick nearly everything. Other growers decide to switch from producing high-value, nonsubsidized fruits and vegetables to producing low-value, highly subsidized row crops merely because the latter is less labor intensive. Still other growers are moving production offshore, reasoning that if they can't find the labor stateside, they'll go where labor is more plentiful.

The Feinstein-Craig legislation was voted out of the Appropriations Committee last week, with half of the Republicans voting to approve. Given the GOP's restrictionist lurch in recent years, Sam Brownback, Ted Stevens, Bob Bennett, Pete Domenici, Kit Bond, Arlen Specter and Mr. Craig deserve credit for their principled, if unpopular, vote.

The goal is to attach the measure to a must-pass War Supplemental bill. Certainly, no one is suggesting that the Emergency Agriculture Relief Act will fix our illegal immigration problem by itself. While most farm workers are illegal, most illegal aliens in the U.S. don't work in agriculture.

Still, it's a step in the right direction because it recognizes economic realities. Congress's attempts to micromanage the foreign-labor needs of the U.S. economy have resulted in 12 million-plus illegal aliens in the country. Why not let the free market take a shot at determining how many of these workers we need?"

[Lenny]

What a pair!!!

The woman that allowed more beautiful,young gay men to spread a debilitating disease and die horrible deaths while she was in power in S.F. and could have stopped it when asked, teams up with a Mr. Wide Stance himself!
And together they attach a bill SO IMPORTANT to the American public and attempt to fly in UNDER the radar by attaching it to a war bill?
Are you freakin' kidding me?
Excuse me while I go and chew my arm off to get out of this trap.
THIS is the reason we have the 2nd Amendment! Not to kill Bambi or shot guys trying to take our TVs and SUVs!
I got to go outside and dig some holes! Or something!