MiamiHerald.com: "California and Southern farmers renewed their case Thursday for some kind of an agricultural guest-worker program, but they're sailing against the wind. ... the farmers this year face excruciatingly long odds as they seek a guest-worker goal that's eluded them since at least 1995. Still, they lobby on.
"You have to be optimistic, don't you?" said Modesto, Calif.-area farmer Paul Wenger, president of the California Farm Bureau Federation. "Stranger things have happened." Wenger joined H. Lee Wicker, deputy director of the North Carolina Growers Association, and Georgia Agriculture Commissioner Gary Black in urging a House panel to overhaul an existing worker visa program and boost farmers' access to foreign labor. Without the fix, they say, growers' problems will proliferate.
"Experience shows us there is no realistic prospect of a domestic work force for agriculture," Wenger told the House subcommittee on immigration policy and enforcement. "We in California have learned the hard way that few Americans seek agricultural jobs."" read more
The MexicoBlog of the Americas Program, a fiscally sponsored program of the Center for Economic and Policy Research (CEPR), is written by Laura Carlsen. I monitor and analyze international press on Mexico, with a focus on security, immigration, human rights and social movements for peace and justice, from a feminist perspective. And sometimes I simply muse.
Showing posts with label H-2A. Show all posts
Showing posts with label H-2A. Show all posts
Feb 10, 2012
Jan 18, 2012
Immigration Realities: Increasing Reliance on Guest Worker Programs
Editor’s Note: This is the second installment of a three-part series on migrant rights by journalist and immigration activist David Bacon. This article is taken from the report “Displaced, Unequal and Criminalized – Fighting for the Rights of Migrants in the United States” that examines the origins of the current migratory labor phenomenon, the mechanisms that maintain it, and proposals for a more equitable system.
CIP Americas: "Over the last 25 years, guest worker programs have increasingly become a vehicle for channeling the migration that has stemmed from free market reforms. Increasing numbers of guest workers are recruited each year for labor in the U.S. from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean under the H1-B, H2-A and H2-B programs. Recruiters promise high wages and charge thousands of dollars for visas, fees and transportation. By the time they leave home, the debts of guest workers are crushing." read more
CIP Americas: "Over the last 25 years, guest worker programs have increasingly become a vehicle for channeling the migration that has stemmed from free market reforms. Increasing numbers of guest workers are recruited each year for labor in the U.S. from Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean under the H1-B, H2-A and H2-B programs. Recruiters promise high wages and charge thousands of dollars for visas, fees and transportation. By the time they leave home, the debts of guest workers are crushing." read more
Jun 2, 2011
Immigration Crackdown: 'Silent raids' and E-Verify immigration enforcement are destroying US farms
OpEd by Daniel Altschuler, Copeland Fellow at Amherst College, has written extensively on immigration politics.
'Silent raids' and E-Verify immigration enforcement are destroying US farms - CSMonitor.com: "Enforcement-only immigration policies will further devastate immigrant communities, ravage labor-intensive agriculture, and take away countless jobs beyond the farm sector. If elected officials want US fruit and vegetable farms to survive, they need to implement smarter immigration reform. ...
The truth is that, until Congress offers existing workers a legal path to remain and employers a legal means to hire them, increasing enforcement creates more problems than it solves....
Still, the growers’ and farmworkers’ positions are not irreconcilable. In fact, their advocates have been joined at the hip in lobbying efforts since 2003, when they forged a bipartisan compromise bill, which garnered a remarkable 63 Senate co-sponsors, called AgJobs (The Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act). AgJobs would expand H-2A, improve worker protections, and offer legalization for farmworkers already here."
The truth is that, until Congress offers existing workers a legal path to remain and employers a legal means to hire them, increasing enforcement creates more problems than it solves....
Still, the growers’ and farmworkers’ positions are not irreconcilable. In fact, their advocates have been joined at the hip in lobbying efforts since 2003, when they forged a bipartisan compromise bill, which garnered a remarkable 63 Senate co-sponsors, called AgJobs (The Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act). AgJobs would expand H-2A, improve worker protections, and offer legalization for farmworkers already here."
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