During his time as House Agriculture chairman a decade ago, Rep. Bob Goodlatte says he learned firsthand that the H-2A agricultural guestworker program is outdated and should be replaced. Now the House Judiciary chairman, Goodlatte says he will sponsor a bill for a new guestworker program that, in addition to foreign workers recruited to work in America, could cover the tens of thousands of undocumented farm workers already in the country — but with no pathway to permanent legal status.
Goodlatte said he would file legislation shortly and indicated it would be similar to his 2013 bill to create a H-2C program allowing farmworkers to stay up to three years if they have a year-round job and making dairies and food-processing plants eligible to hire ag guestworkers for the first time. The 2013 bill would have removed the requirement for employers to provide housing and transportation for the workers while adding the freedom for workers to change jobs.
“The new program would be at its core a true guestworker program,” said Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, during a subcommittee hearing on the issue. “The bill simply allows agricultural employers to hire — under the guestworker program — aliens who had been unlawfully present just as they can hire any other foreign nationals. They would be required to abide by the same conditions as other guestworkers, including leaving the U.S. periodically to ensure that they retain ties with their home countries.”
Subcommittee member Zoe Lofgren said farm labor reform must resolve the standing of undocumented workers. Half or more of farmworkers are believed to be undocumented. Some 55 percent of undocumented farmworkers have been in the United States for at least five years, said Lofgren, so the Goodlatte approach, with its mandate to leave the country periodically and seek re-admission, will not appeal to workers who have families and homes. “The two solutions [undocumented workers and visas for foreign workers] are not the same,” said Lofgren, a California Democrat.
House and Senate Democrats have filed companion bills for a “blue card” to authorize the presence of undocumented farmworkers who pay a fine and pass a background check. The bills offer a 3-to-5-year path to citizenship for workers who stay in agriculture.
The Trump administration emphasizes border security and deportation of undocumented immigrants. The ag industry says reform must provide an opportunity for workers to obtain legal status along with a new visa program for guestworkers. A farm group leader says discussions are ongoing with Goodlatte, with both sides believing it is important to show progress on farm labor. “We must not squander the golden opportunity that we have with this Congress to enact meaningful agricultural guestworker reform,” said Goodlatte.
Farm groups say deportation is impractical and, affecting as many as 1.2 million workers, would be disruptive. The State Department issued 134,368 H-2A visas last year, twice as many as in 2012, but well short of the estimated number of undocumented farmworkers. The H-2A visas usually expire in 10 months or less, but they can be extended.
The House Appropriations Committee approved an amendment saying “all of agriculture may use H-2A,” said sponsor Rep. Dan Newhouse, Washington State Republican. “Modern agriculture techniques that have become less ‘seasonal’ demand an update to this program because many segments of the agriculture industry are either no longer seasonal or have multiple harvests, one after the other.” Livestock producers have complained the H-2A programs is of little use to them because it is aimed as seasonal work, such as crop harvesting. Newhouse said the amendment would help dairy farms, among others, while keeping H-2A as a source of temporary labor.
To watch a video of the House Judiciary subcommittee hearing or to read the statements of witnesses, click here.