Broad-ranging reform is needed for U.S. immigration and guest worker laws, said three farm groups who supported the comprehensive reform bill passed by the Senate in 2013. The groups said President Barack Obama’s executive order will not resolve labor shortages or fix the unwieldy H-2A guest worker program. Reform should include a way for farm workers to gain legal status, they said.
An estimated one-half of farm workers are undocumented.
“Farmers and ranchers need a new, flexible visa program that ensures long-term access to an expanding workforce by allowing foreign-born workers to enter the U.S. We also need to permit some current workers, many of whom have helped sustain our operations for years, to remain working in America,” said president Bob Stallman of the 6 million-member American Farm Bureau Federation. “We need legislation that addresses border security and enforcement, improves an outdated agricultural visa program and gives experienced agricultural workers a way to gain legal status.”
Chuck Conner of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives said “legislation is needed to provide a durable solution to the labor shortages being experienced by farmers, ranchers and growers. Certainty for current workers and a working visa program for the future…can only be achieved through congressional action,” Conner, who was deputy agriculture secretary during the Bush administration, said the executive order aids “a small subset” of agricultural workers in the near term but will not provide permanent relief. “To mix metaphors, we as a country should not bring people out of the shadows only to let them twist in the wind,” he said
Western Growers Association also called for immigration reform. “Agriculture’s needs must be a top priority to ensure our existing workforce is given an incentive to continue working in agriculture until a new and better visa program is in place,” said WGA president Tom Nassif. “The value of farm workers…must be recognized with a path to legal status that acknowledges their past service and ongoing importance to this industry.” Nassif said Western Growers “will oppose any piecemeal legislative package that fails to put the agriculture industry at the front of the line. Our industry is in jeopardy.”