Returning to a signature issue of his campaign, President Trump endorsed a Senate bill for a skills-based system for immigration that could have a distant effect on farm labor because it would halve the flow of legal immigrants. The Ag Workforce Coalition of farm groups said it “continues to work with key lawmakers on legislation that would address agriculture’s needs” for a legal and reliable supply of farm workers with hopes the issue will gain traction in the fall.
House Judiciary chairman Bob Goodlatte expects to introduce soon a bill to create a new agricultural guestworker program, to be called H-2C, which also would be open to farmworkers now in the country illegally. It would allow guest workers to work at year-round jobs on farms and at food processing plants for up to three years at a time. An estimated half to 70 percent of farmworkers are believed to be undocumented.
Growers say the current H-2A visa system for seasonal workers is cumbersome and sometimes does not deliver enough workers in time for harvest. The Ag Workforce Coalition advocates legal status for undocumented farm workers and an overhaul of the guest-worker program.
At the White House, Trump said the immigration bill sponsored by Republican Sens. Tom Cotton of Arkansas and David Perdue of Georgia “protects U.S. workers from being displaced” and “will give American workers a pay raise by reducing unskilled immigration.”
The bill would give priority for permanent residency — so-called green card status — to applicants based on education, English-language skills, job offers, age and past achievements. Over 10 years, the number of immigrants admitted would drop to 500,000 from the current one million annually, “to limit low-skilled and unskilled labor,” says a White House factsheet.
“I think it’s going to be very, very important — the biggest change in 50 years, biggest change in 50 years,” said the president.
Four years ago, the Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform legislation that included a separate path to citizenship for undocumented farmworkers, but it died without a vote in the House. Immigration has been a fraught issue since.
In his first weeks in office, Trump signed executive orders for deportation of illegal immigrants and to build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border. Both were prominent parts of his presidential campaign with his promise of strict enforcement of the border and immigration law.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, South Carolina Republican, said on Twitter that he supports merit-based immigration. “Unfortunately other part of proposal reduces legal immigration by half including many immigrants who work legally in Ag, tourism, & service.” Agriculture and tourism are the two largest industries in South Carolina, he said. “If the proposal were to become law … [it would be] devastating to [the South Carolina] economy which relies on this immigrant workforce.”
The National Farmers Union, the second-largest U.S. farm group, tweeted, “#immigration reform needs to include real solutions for farmers & ranchers, many of who rely on immigrant workers.”
An aide to Cotton said the immigration bill was silent on agricultural labor. The Ag Workforce Coalition said it took no position on the bill.
For White House transcript of the remarks by Trump, Cotton and Perdue, click here.
For the White House summary of the Cotton-Perdue bill, click here.
For a Cotton-Perdue fact sheet on the bill, cick here.
For a section by section summary of the bill, click here.
For text of the bill, click here.