The U.S. House might not vote on an immigration bill this year in large part due to opposition from California farmers, reports McClatchy. Growers say harsh provisions in the bill would gut the state’s agricultural work force, so they are working with powerful lawmakers, such as Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy, to keep such a package from going to a floor vote.
House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte revised the farm labor portions of the bill last month in response to agricultural concerns. While the largest U.S. farm group, the American Farm Bureau Federation, supports the new version of the bill, California’s farm lobby “objects, specifically, to provisions in the bill that would cap agricultural work visas, mandate that companies confirm their employees’ legal status using the online E-Verify system and require existing workers here illegally to go back to their country of origin before they can return on an agricultural work visa,” said McClatchy. The AFBF says undocumented farm workers should have the opportunity to gain legal status.
Conservative Republicans are pushing for a vote on the wide-ranging Goodlatte bill but it does not have enough support to pass at the moment, “thanks in large part to the concerns of GOP members from farm states and districts, as well as some moderates who dislike its restrictions on legal immigration,” said McClatchy. The California Farm Bureau and the Western Growers Association were prominent in expressing concern about the Goodlatte plan.
Tom Nassif, chief executive of Western Growers, said the “touchback” provision, requiring undocumented workers to go to their home country and apply to return to U.S. work, was unpalatable to workers who have been in the United States for years and feel few ties to their homeland. Combined with the bill’s provision for mandatory use of E-Verify, “we lose our entire workforce,” Nassif told McClatchy.
Separately, California Senator Dianne Feinstein, sponsor of a bill to create a “blue card” for farm workers and their families, said “we must protect those who put food on our tables.” The statement was a response to reports that 26 California farmworkers were arrested last week and now face deportation. Feinstein’s bill, and a House companion, would allow give legal status to undocumented workers who show consistent employment in U.S. agriculture for two years, pay a fine and pass a background check. A three- to five-year path to citizenship would be offered to those who continue to work in agriculture.
An Ag Insider story about Goodlatte’s revisions on farm labor is available here.