U.S. lets in more immigrants for farms

[babylonsister]

No double standard here, is there. :eyes:


http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-farmworkers7oct07,0,7492249.story?coll=la-home-center


U.S. lets in more immigrants for farms



HELP WANTED: As border enforcement has tightened, U.S. farms, such as one in Imperial Valley, shown in 2005, are having a more difficult time finding workers, the administration says.
The administration is quietly relaxing visa regulations because farmworkers are in critically short supply.

By Nicole Gaouette, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
October 7, 2007

WASHINGTON -- With a nationwide farmworker shortage threatening to leave unharvested fruits and vegetables rotting in fields, the Bush administration has begun quietly rewriting federal regulations to eliminate barriers that restrict how foreign laborers can legally be brought into the country.

The effort, urgently underway at the departments of Homeland Security, State and Labor, is meant to rescue farm owners caught in a vise between a complex process to hire legal guest workers and stepped-up enforcement that has reduced the number of illegal planters, pickers and middle managers crossing the border.

"It is important for the farm sector to have access to labor to stay competitive," said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel. "As the southern border has tightened, some producers have a more difficult time finding a workforce, and that is a factor of what is going on today."

The push to speedily rewrite the regulations is also the Bush administration's attempt to step into a breach left when Congress did not pass an immigration overhaul in June that might have helped American farms. Almost three-quarters of farmworkers are thought to be illegal immigrants.

On all sides of the farm industry, the administration's behind-the-scenes initiative to revamp H-2A farmworker visas is fraught with anxiety. Advocates for immigrants fear the changes will come at the expense of worker protections because the administration has received and is reportedly acting on extensive input from farm lobbyists. And farmers in areas such as the San Joaquin Valley, which is experiencing a 20% labor shortfall, worry the administration's changes will not happen soon enough for the 2008 growing season.

"It's like a ticking time bomb that's going to go off," said Luawanna Hallstrom, chief operating officer of Harry Singh & Sons, a third-generation family farm in Oceanside that grows tomatoes. "I'm looking at my fellow farmers and saying, 'Oh my God, what's going on?' "

more...

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-farmworkers7oct07,0,7492249.story?coll=la-home-center

[againes654]

1. That, and who else is going to build the border wall? n/t

[Hydra]

2. And I can't get hired for a job? Pahlease

They want workers they don't have to pay. Disgusting that people think this is fine and dandy.

[Gormy Cuss]

3. Why are they doing it quietly?

If they were addressing in a way that benefited both the farm owners and the field workers there would be no benefit to making the changes low profile. Expanding and streamlining H2-A visa process seems to be the issue and since those are temporary VISA who would be upset by that, at least as a short term fix?

[Robson]

4. Have they ever heard of the mechanical cotton picker?

The only reason that mechanical means to pick crops and fruits are not developed or more commonly used is because of the availability of cheap labor. Farmers have eternally bitched because they don't have enough cheap labor (or actual slave labor) to do their bidding, at compensation rates that are far cheap to support Americans. Apparently the need for farm slaves has never gone away in the last 400 years.

Once such labor drys up then the agricultural industry will be forced into developing and using mechanical means as they were with the cotton pickers. It ends up providing higher paid industrial and technology jobs instead of manual farm hand jobs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cotton_picker

[VP505]

5. Farmers can hire

all the labor they need through the H2-A program, the number is UNLIMITED. However they have to apply ahead of time and must pay the going rate to their temporary agricultural workers. The reason that they are having a shortage NOW is because they chose to hire workers here illegally rather than participate in a LEGAL program. They should have anticipated that with more immigration law enforcement that this could happen to them. Perhaps if they would STOP exploiting their workers they wouldn't have those problems.