agriculture

Money will help establish center's first-ever formal training program for staff and volunteers

PCUN’s Farmworker Service Center received a $10,000 grant from the Oregon Community Foundation last year, which the Woodburn-based nonprofit and farmworkers union plans to use to strengthen services and develop a formal orientation and training program.

Jaime Arredondo, secretary-treasurer for PCUN (Northwest Treeplanters and Farmworkers United), said that though the Farmworker Service Center has been providing accredited immigration law services to its clients for over 30 years, it has never had a formal training program for its employees, volunteers or interns.

“They have some pieces, but not something comprehensive,” he said.

The center provides a variety of services to PCUN members, including legal representation for a number of different immigration matters, referral services, verbal and written translations, public notary services and a death benefit.

“These services are vital because they provide an entry point to better economic and health stability for Oregon’s most vulnerable workforce,” Arredondo said.

Arredondo said the center already serves well over 1,000 people each year, and the demand is expected to keep growing, especially if there is an extension of immigration relief or reform in the future.

“(That) would put the FSC in a challenging place to meet the demand,” he said. “We need to be able to scale up quicker. The training program would allow the FSC to do this.”

The Willamette Valley Law Project was the center’s fiscal sponsor for the grant, since PCUN is a 501(c)(5) nonprofit, and a 501(c)(3) was needed to apply for these particular grants.

The award was part of 22 grants the OCF handed out in November 2015, totalling more than $443,000, to northern Willamette Valley nonprofits. The foundation awarded a total of over $8.4 million state-wide.

For more information about PCUN and the Farmworker Service Center, visit www.pcun.org/pcun-service-center. For full lists of grants awarded around the state and more information about OCF initiatives, visit www.oregoncf.org.
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Broetje Orchards of Washington, one of the country’s largest apple growers, has agreed to pay a $2.25 million fine for hiring illegal immigrants. The fine is one of the largest ever levied against an agricultural concern, according to government officials who announced it Thursday.

A spokesman for Immigration and Customs Enforcement said that the civil penalty was levied against Broetje for employing nearly 950 people who weren’t authorized to work in the U.S...

“All businesses are expected to comply with the law and to ensure the information provided on a form I-9 (employment form) is accurate,” said ICE Director Sarah R. Saldaña.

...acknowledges auditors found that it continued to employ unauthorized workers after being advised by ICE those employees didn’t have permission to work in the U.S.

Broetje is the largest employer in Walla Walla County in Eastern Washington. It has more than 1,000 permanent employees and up to 2,800 during harvest season. Many of them live on the company’s vast grounds in Prescott, Wash., where the grower built housing, school and a day care center for workers.

When the concern first came under scrutiny years ago, it already had begun to train and employ low-skilled workers in the U.S. legally, many of them refugees from Africa and Asia. But its founders, Ralph and Cheryl Broetje, said in an interview at the time that agriculture suffered from a severe labor shortage and that they hoped an overhaul of the country’s immigration system would enable their business to retain experienced workers.

They declined to comment Thursday. But a statement attributed to company management said: “We are pleased to put this process behind us and to get back the business of growing fruit. It said the case ”highlights what is clearly a dysfunctional and broken immigration system.”
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No discussion of immigration reform in Washington gets very far without some politician boldly declaring, “The first thing we must do is secure the border,” as if that were a novel idea and panacea for illegal immigration.

Once and for all: The border is a red herring. It’s not our border that’s out of control; it’s the Obama administration that’s out of control and the border is just one of many casualties in the president’s assault on immigration enforcement.

What we have on our hands is an immigration meltdown engineered by the president and his political appointees. Our immigration courts have ceased to function, and virtually every illegal alien has been exempted from removal, even if they were operating. Work permits are being handed out to illegal aliens like lollipops on Halloween – about 5.5 million since Obama came to office in 2009.

Of course our borders out of control!

In recent days, the Department of Justice announced that because immigration courts are so overwhelmed, most people with cases pending will not have them heard until 2019 at the earliest. These courts are not overwhelmed because they’re busy deporting so many people who shouldn’t be here. Rather, they are overwhelmed by the number of people who have no business here seeking legalization and the tens of thousands of Central Americans who surged across the border last summer.

In reporting the story, AP cited as a “victim” of the delay the story of Maximiano Vazquez-Guevarra, an illegal alien from Mexico who recently won his appeal to become a legal permanent resident, but needs to make one more court appearance to make it final. Vasquez managed to tie up the courts for three years successfully fighting deportation (and gaining legal status) after coming to the attention of authorities when he was charged with his second DUI.

While the courts have ceased to function because, under the Obama administration, illegal aliens can spend years petitioning for legal residency because they get caught driving while intoxicated (and win), millions more are being given work permits because…well, because the administration just feels like it.

According to a new report by the Center for Immigration Studies, the Obama administration has been ignoring statutorily mandated limits on immigration (big shocker) and handing out Employment Authorization Documents (EADs) at will. Since 2009, 1.2 million people who were admitted on temporary visas that explicitly bar them from working got – you guessed it – EADs. Almost a million illegal aliens also received work authorization, despite the inconvenient law that bars them from being employed in the U.S. Another 1.7 million EADs were parceled out to folks whose status in this country was unclear. But, what the heck, the administration has no interest in finding out and no intention of doing anything about it anyway.

And all this is before they have even begun carrying out the president’s massive executive amnesty, which could grant give legal status and EADs to an additional 5 million illegal aliens, which is likely to trigger an even greater surge of illegal immigration.

First let’s secure the border? No, first we have to stop the president from rendering our entire immigration law meaningless.
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November 7, 2013, Wilsonville, Ore. -- The Oregon Association of Nurseries will recognize six Oregon elected officials as "Friends of Nurseries" at its 2013 Convention, to be held Friday at The Oregon Garden resort in Silverton, Ore.

The six include three Republicans and three Democrats. They are Gov. John Kitzhaber (D), U.S. Rep Kurt Schrader (D-Oregon Fifth District), Oregon House Speaker Tina Kotek (D-Portland), State Sen. Bill Hansell (R-Pendleton), State Sen. Chuck Thomsen (R-Hood River), and State Rep. Cliff Bentz (R-Ontario).

"The Oregon nursery industry is the largest single segment in Oregon agriculture, with $745 million in sales in the most recent year that was tracked," OAN Executive Director Jeff Stone said. "Our association is more than 800 businesses strong, and all of them make a positive difference in Oregon's economy. That's why we wanted to give these public officials some much-deserved recognition. All of them have shown positive leadership, ensuring that Oregon remains a great place for nurseries to do business."

Gov. Kitzhaber was recognized for taking the lead on creating a new water supply fund for irrigation, natural resource protection and other uses. He was also recognized for putting together a task force that led to creation and passage of a four-year driver's card bill. Finally, Kitzhaber has maintained critical natural resource and extension funding at the state level, which the industry relies on for sharing knowledge and managing pest and disease threats.

Rep. Schrader has been consistent ally on the Farm Bill and comprehensive immigration reform. He has secured funding for research and pest and disease issues, and successfully pushed the USDA to rescind a discriminatory order that denied Oregon growers equal marketplace access. Schrader is currently serving on a House-Senate conference committee regarding the federal Farm Bill.

Speaker Kotek provided critical support so that the water supply bill and driver's card bill could move forward.

Sen. Hansell was a key figure in the passage of the water supply bill and also sponsored the driver's card bill.

Sen. Thomsen also sponsored the driver's card bill and provided critical support to help get it passed.

Rep. Bentz helped put together a compromise that moved the water supply bill forward when few thought it could pass. It ended up passing with just one dissenting vote between the two legislative chambers.

The awards will be announced at Friday's convention. At that convention, outgoing OAN President Carson Lord of Tree Frog Nursery (Silverton, Ore.) will pass the gavel to President-Elect Matt Gold, who will assume office. Gold and a 23-member board will guide the association's direction and priorities for 2014.

The Oregon Association of Nurseries, based in Wilsonville, represents more than 800 wholesale growers, retailers, landscapers and suppliers. Nursery products are the biggest sector in Oregon agriculture, with annual sales of $745 million in 2012. Oregon's nursery industry is a traded sector; nearly 75 percent of Oregon-grown nursery plants are shipped out of state. To learn more, visit www.oan.org or call 503-682-5089.

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