Lawmakers Trying To Bring Farmworkers Back, Legally

After an outcry from American farmers over a shortage of migrant workers in their fields, Republican lawmaker Lamar Smith recently introduced a plan to overhaul the current H-2A program which forces employers to use a system called E-Verify to certify that new laborers can legally work in the US.  That bill has proven unpopular with growers who claim it’s costly, involves too much red tape, and hurts their business.

According to the New York Times, Smith’s new bill H-2C would:

[S]hift management of the guest worker program from the Department of Labor, where he said farmers face a “culture of hostility,” to the Department of Agriculture. It would require only that employers attest that they had offered jobs to American workers, removing time-consuming procedural hurdles that farmers said had not helped attract Americans to strenuous migrant farm work.

The proposal also “constrains the federally funded Legal Services Corp., a perennial target of agribusiness, by prohibiting legal aid attorneys from suing on behalf of foreign guest workers until after formal mediation.”

While growers in southern states like South Carolina and Georgia are on board, farmers and lawmakers in agricultural giant California backing the bill.  The Miami-Herald reports:

[I]n California, where growers employ the largest number of farmworkers, skepticism arises from across the political spectrum. Growers call the proposal insufficient, while farmworker allies consider the new bill overly harsh.

“Because the bill slashes wages and worker protections, it actually creates the incentive for employers to replace their current American workers with much cheaper (foreign) workers,” warned Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif.

Another Republican, Representative Dan Lungren of California is planning on proposing another bill this week that would not tie migrant workers to one farm, and would allow them entry into the US for 10 months a year to do agricultural work.  Given that neither proposal includes stipulations on legalizing undocumented workers, both bills are expected to reach opposition from Democrats in Congress.