U.S. let in record 317,000 agricultural guestworkers
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With American farmers increasingly relying on foreign agricultural laborers, the Labor Department approved 317,619 seasonal guestworkers during the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, up 15 percent from a year earlier, a farmworker advocacy group said on Tuesday. No paywall
U.S. ‘stabilizes’ H-2A pay rates at 2020 level through 2022
Minimum pay rates for most agricultural guest workers will remain at this year’s levels through 2022 under a regulation announced by the Labor Department on Tuesday. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue said the regulation demonstrated “President Trump’s commitment to America’s farmers by …
Advocates fear canceling Farm Labor Survey is first step in gutting guest farmworker protections
Farmworker advocates fear the USDA’s decision last month to cancel the Farm Labor Survey is a step toward dismantling the already modest protections for agricultural guestworkers under the H-2A visa program in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic.(No paywall)
Farm-labor reform bill heads for House vote this week
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Six weeks after sponsors unveiled their plan, the House is scheduled to vote on a bipartisan bill to provide legal status to undocumented farmworkers and to modernize the H-2A guestworker program. If passed, the bill has an uncertain future, with impeachment dominating the congressional agenda and the Republican-run Senate blockading legislation from the Democratic-controlled House.
For livestock groups, USMCA and year-round labor visas are top priorities
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Congress should overhaul the U.S. guest worker program so it allows foreign laborers to work year-round on farms and in meat processing plants, rather than just seasonally in the fields, said U.S. poultry and livestock groups on Tuesday. Representatives of six groups also supported prompt …
White House fleshes out immigration plan, but no mention of farm labor
President Trump's proposal for a "merit-based" immigration system that favors younger, highly-trained and high-salary workers is now a 620-page bill that will be released "very soon," said presidential adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner on Tuesday.