Plan to Speed Importing of Foreign Workers Killed

The Senate, debating a sweeping immigration bill into the evening Thursday, narrowly defeated an amendment sought by farmers in California and other Western states that would have streamlined the procedure by which they could obtain foreign workers legally.

“The issue before us will determine whether American farmers can continue to grow perishable crops in the United States,” said Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), sponsor of the hard-fought but unsuccessful effort to include the provision in the immigration bill.

Wilson’s amendment, like a provision in last year’s House bill, would permit growers to obtain foreign workers almost immediately if they could prove that they could not hire enough domestic laborers. These foreign workers would then be allowed to remain in the country, going from job to job, for up to nine months.

The provision failed, 50 to 48, when the Senate voted to table it--a procedural move that effectively killed it. California’s other senator, Democrat Alan Cranston, was among those who opposed it.

Wilson vowed later to try to add the measure to a future piece of legislation. Without the provision, he said, the immigration bill would force growers of perishable crops into “a situation of either breaking the law or losing the farm . . . . That is not an acceptable choice, not in our nation.”

The immigration bill, sponsored by Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.), would for the first time impose fines on employers hiring workers who have entered this country illegally.

Western growers depend heavily on illegal workers and argue that they cannot find enough stable U.S. labor at harvest time.

Although Simpson’s bill makes it somewhat easier for them to obtain foreign laborers legally--through the H-2 program used widely for harvesting non-perishable crops such as sugar cane--Western farmers say it still does not allow them needed flexibility to obtain large numbers of workers to harvest their crops on a few days’ notice.

Under the H-2 program, employers may legally bring in foreign workers if they can prove that they are unable to find sufficient numbers of skilled domestic workers. Simpson would cut back the time required to obtain foreign workers under the program from 80 days to 65 days and, in emergencies, employers could obtain workers within 72 hours.

Exploitation Feared

Opponents of Wilson’s amendment, including Latino groups and organized labor, argued that the provision would simply provide growers an opportunity to exploit foreign workers, denying jobs to qualified U.S. laborers who would demand higher pay and better working conditions.

“Make no mistake about it: This is going to be the fastest . . . way to throw Americans out of their jobs,” Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.) charged. Moreover, he said, while the bill aims to stop a record wave of illegal aliens across U.S. borders, Wilson’s amendment would “effectively just open up every border--all these borders in this country.”

This effort marks the third time that Congress has considered an overhaul of the nation’s immigration laws.

In addition to making it against the law for employers to hire illegal aliens knowingly, the legislation also would offer amnesty to illegal aliens who could prove that they have lived in this country since a certain date--in the case of the Senate bill, since Jan. 1, 1980.

Approval in Senate

Similar immigration plans have passed the GOP-controlled Senate by 4-1 margins in each of the last two sessions of Congress. However, in the solidly Democratic House, a broad coalition of Latino groups, civil libertarians and Western growers has fought the legislation.

It passed the House narrowly last year, only to die in the closing hours of the congressional session as House and Senate negotiators were unable to resolve their differences over an anti-discrimination provision.

Wilson estimated that his amendment would provide visas for 200,000 to 300,000 foreigners a year. Under his plan, one-fifth of their wages would be put in escrow and forfeited if they did not return to their home countries when their visas expired. But opponents said that would not guarantee that they would not remain in this country.

Farm Groups Mobilized

A well-financed alliance of Western farm organizations had “lobbied, quite frankly, as hard as we could” for the proposal, said Michael V. Durando, president of the California Grape and Tree Fruit League. He would not disclose how much they had spent or how much money they planned to raise for their fight in the House.

The close Senate vote “positions us well for any future action,” he said, adding that his is “an industry that will not survive, in our opinion, under the existing conditions of this bill.”

Separately, the Senate passed on a voice vote a non-binding amendment declaring English the official U.S. language. The amendment, which also has been added to the two previous immigration bills passed by the Senate, has little practical effect because it changes no existing laws.

Before adjourning for the night at about 9 p.m., the Senate agreed to resume debate today on the immigration bill.