agriculture

The aftermath of seven farmworkers killed May 18 in one of the deadliest highway crashes in recent Oregon history has highlighted a network willing and able to rally support for its more vulnerable members.

But the unique challenges the farmworker community faces when tragedy strikes also have been accentuated.

A van carrying 11 passengers, all contract farmworkers, was struck by a semitruck traveling north on Interstate 5 near Albany. Six people were killed on-site; a seventh died on the way to a regional hospital. The other four passengers were injured, some severely. . . . Read more about Support surges for farmworkers killed in Oregon highway crash, but hurdles remain

According to a press release by the United States Department of Agriculture, the department has created a pilot program that it says will strengthen the food supply chain by “reducing irregular migration” and focusing on a “more resilient” H-2A visa program. . . .

  Read more about USDA Announces $65 Million for Migration Pilot Program to Strengthen Food Supply Chain

We live in an age of superlatives. Pretty much every time Congress acts, adjectives such as “biggest” or “most expensive” are applied. Therefore, it hardly came as a surprise when the Democratic controlled House of Representatives voted to include the biggest and most expensive illegal alien amnesty in their so-called Build Back Better (BBB) bill (H.R. 5376) – a $1.75 trillion social spending package that, according to Wharton Business School, will actually cost $4.25 trillion. . . . Read more about FAIR Newsletter: House Passes Largest Illegal Alien Amnesty in History

Congress has voted to spend $1.6 billion to help cartels deliver children and job-seeking youths to cities and towns around the United States.

The giveaway is buried within the continuing resolution, which was rushed through Congress late Thursday to keep government agencies operating until February. . . . Read more about Congress Spends $1.6 Billion to Subsidize Cartels’ Labor Smuggling in U.S.

DHS announced in February that it will be delaying and reconsidering a critical regulation change governing how USCIS selects H-1B registrations for the filing of cap-subject petitions. The administration’s failure to implement these critical reforms underscores its unwillingness to prioritize the interests of both U.S. and foreign workers over those of profit collectors and outsourcing companies. . . Read more about DHS Delays Critical H-1B Rule, Senators Respond

The United States should reopen itself to migration, amnesties, refugee inflows, asylum seekers, and more temporary contract workers, Mexico’s ambassador to the United States said Tuesday.

The U.S. immigration system “has to be based on facts and realities,” Ambassador Martha Bárcena Coqui told a forum arranged by the National Immigration Forum (NIF). She continued: ‘The facts and realities is the need to protect the most vulnerable, the need to keep open the generosity towards refugees, the need to recognize the complementarity of labor markets and demographic profiles, the need for temporary workers in the United States.”. . Read more about Mexican Ambassador: Let's Restart Mass Migration into U.S.

A devastating March 28 Associated Press report reveals how little value powerful agricultural interests place on the lives and safety of either their guest workers or their illegal labor force. Moreover, the stunning silence of the massively funded network of so-called “immigrants’ rights” groups in the face of these revelations shows how little they actually care about the people they claim to advocate for. . . Read more about The Other Dangerous Dependence Exposed by Coronavirus Crisis: Low Wage, Exploitable Foreign Farm Labor, Charges FAIR

(Liberty Headlines) The Supreme Court on Monday allowed the Trump administration to put in place a policy connecting the use of public benefits with whether immigrants could become permanent residents Read more about Liberty Headlines: Supreme Court OKs Denial of Green Cards for Those Likely to Need Gov’t Aid

At a time when lawmakers from our two political parties can barely stomach being under the same rotunda with each other, House members have managed to come together to approve a regressive labor and illegal alien amnesty bill, ironically labeled the Farm Workforce Modernization Act (H.R. 5038). Owing to the chaos swirling around the nation’s capital, this massive giveaway to the powerful agricultural industry lobby is largely escaping notice from the American people.

Under H.R. 5038, an estimated 1.5 million illegal aliens would be eligible for amnesty, but not before having to serve a decade or more in indentured servitude to their employers before achieving full legal status. “Granting amnesty to illegal aliens is always a bad idea, and merely attracts more illegal immigration,” stated Dan Stein, president of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR).

“The only thing worse than another large-scale amnesty is one that then forces people to continue to toil for poor wages and under poor working conditions for the same unscrupulous employers who hired them illegally in the first place,” said Stein.

Far from modernizing our agricultural workforce, the legislation ensures that the American agricultural industry will remain mired in the 17th century. “The foundation of a modern agricultural industry must be increased reliance on technology and mechanization to ensure that we can feed our population and export our surplus. Instead of offering incentives or subsidies for farmers to invest in real modernization, this bill incentivizes a continued reliance on inefficient, low-wage immigrant labor,” Stein charged.

H.R. 5038 is, at best, a short-term fix for an industry that relies on easily exploitable labor. The bill, which would designate current illegal farmworkers as Certified Agricultural Workers (CAW), is almost an exact replicate of the failed 1986 Special Agricultural Worker (SAW) amnesty. Under that fraud-ridden amnesty program, some 1.1 million illegal aliens received legal status prompting them to leave that industry in pursuit of better wages and working conditions in other sectors of the economy, and leading Big Agriculture to hire the next wave of illegal aliens.

“Mark Twain quipped that ‘History doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.’ Congress, in attempting to create a CAW amnesty after the massive failure of the SAW amnesty, seems intent on proving that history can repeat itself and rhyme at the same time,” Stein observed.

“While Congress continues to do nothing to secure our borders, passing a bill that rewards both illegal aliens and their employers, and calling it ‘modernization,’ is a slap in the face to the plurality of Americans who consider immigration to be the nation’s most pressing domestic issue,” concluded Stein.

Contact: Matthew Tragesser, 202-328-7004 or mtragesser@fairus.org Read more about Apparently Washington is Never Too Divided to Capitulate to the Demands of Big Ag