With immigration legislation stalled in Congress, four members of President Trump’s cabinet said on Thursday that they will modernize the H-2A guestworker program for agricultural labor. A farm leader, while commending the effort, cautioned that H-2A reforms “do nothing for the legal status of our current workforce.”
Half of agricultural workers — a million people or more, by some estimates — are believed to be undocumented. Farm groups say they need a reliable and legal workforce, so they have supported legislation that would give legal status to farmworkers. “All shortcomings of the current H-2A cannot be addressed administratively,” said Chuck Conner of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives. “[We] still need legislation to solve agriculture’s labor problems.”
In a statement, the secretaries of Labor, State, Agriculture, and Homeland Security said they “are working in coordination to propose streamlining, simplifying, and improving the H-2A temporary agricultural visa program — reducing cumbersome bureaucracy and ensuring adequate protections for U.S. workers.” The administration also will encourage farmers to use the E-Verify database to ensure job applicants can work legally. “We look forward to delivering a more responsive program soon,” said the cabinet members.
Conservative House Republicans defeated the GOP-written farm bill a week ago to demonstrate their demand for a vote on immigration control, including the status of so-called Dreamers. They back a broad-ranging immigration bill that is more restrictive than one proposed by President Trump. It includes a new, year-round H-2C agricultural visa — it would replace the H-2A program — that would be available, for the first time, to livestock farmers, meatpackers, and the timber industry. Republican leaders are reportedly considering deleting the H-2C program to make the immigration bill more palatable to moderates.
The H-2C program, the brainchild of House Judiciary Committee chairman Bob Goodlatte, would offer legal status to undocumented farmworkers if they register, return to their homelands, and apply for a visa to return to the United States. Farmers have complained that the H-2A system, which provides seasonal visas, is unwieldy to use and often fails to provide workers in time for crop harvesting. The bill would block H-2C visa holders from changing jobs until the E-Verify system is in full operation.