guestworker program
Year-round farmworker visa is part of House GOP immigration bill
The chairmen of the House Judiciary and Homeland Security committees unveiled a broad-scale immigration reform bill that might piggyback on a legislative resolution of the “dreamers” issue.
Ag trade is vital, says Farm Bureau leader a day before Trump speech
Farmers are among President Trump's staunchest supporters, and they have a response to his threats to scrap NAFTA and rewrite other trade agreements: "Without those global markets, our already-depressed farm economy would go down even more," said Zippy Duvall, leader of the largest U.S. farm group. "Trade should not be a dirty word," Duvall told the estimated 7,000 attendees at American Farm Bureau Federation convention, where Trump is scheduled to speak this afternoon.
GOP sponsor of year-round guestworker bill to leave House in 2018
In announcing his retirement at the end of 2018, House Judiciary chairman Bob Goodlatte said his goals in his final year in office include "bolstering enforcement of our immigration laws and reforming the legal immigration system." Goodlatte, a Virginia Republican, is the sponsor of divisive legislation to create a year-round H-2C agricultural guestworker program to replace seasonal H-2A visas.
Sponsor of ‘blue card’ farmworker bill will leave Congress
Illinois Rep. Luis Gutierrez, sponsor of a bill that would give legal status to undocumented farmworkers and their families, says he will retire after 13 terms in the House.
Party-line divisions as House Judiciary works on new guestworker program
House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte tweaked his bill for a new year-round H-2C guestworker visa program but Democrats on the committee said the changes worsened a bill that greatly expands the range of jobs the foreign workers could fill. During a rancorous bill-drafting session, the Republican majority defeated on party-line votes Democratic amendments for higher pay for H-2C workers and to bar them from forestry jobs.
House panel to vote on guestworker and E-Verify bills today
The United Farm Workers union likened legislation for a new guestworker program, scheduled for a vote today in the House Judiciary Committee, to the post-war bracero program in that it would "undermine the wages and working conditions of all agricultural workers." The bill, by Judiciary chairman Bob Goodlatte, will be considered at the same session as a bill to require all employers to use the E-Verify system to check if applicants can work legally.
House Judiciary chair aims for new agricultural guestworker program
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 farmworkers already in the country — but with no pathway to permanent legal status.