Administration Urges Program to Import Foreign Farmhands, Specifies No Limits

The Reagan Administration, in a move sure to please growers but anger farm labor advocates and Latino groups, for the first time Monday urged creation of a special program that would legalize the temporary importation of foreign farmhands to harvest perishable fruits and vegetables.

The White House plan specified no limit on the number of “guest workers” that could be brought into the country under a program that could last as long 22 years. Still, officials portrayed the proposal as a compromise designed in response to a Senate-approved plan that would allow up to 350,000 foreign workers at a time in American fields for at least the next three years.

Sticky Congress Issue

Creation of a new guest worker program has become the stickiest issue facing lawmakers as they attempt to stem the tide of illegal immigrants by making it illegal to hire them.

A Senate bill passed last month and a pending House version both would grant amnesty to many illegal alien workers, although the measures differ significantly in details.

Growers in the West and South contend that they need foreign workers to help pick their crops because many domestic workers shun the back-breaking work. Without this help, weather-sensitive crops will rot on the ground and seriously damage the $23-billion-a-year perishable food industry, those growers argue.

But critics contend that the farmers have grown fat on cheap labor and only want the foreign worker supply to undercut the ability of unions to demand better wages and working conditions for domestic field hands and holders of temporary work permits.

Workers Called Vital

Deputy Agriculture Secretary John Norton told a House subcommittee considering immigration changes that Administration officials, until recently divided over the issue, now agreed that foreign workers are vital to the perishable commodities industry--and that any immigration bill would have to make at least temporary accommodations for that industry.

“The Administration regards a seasonal worker program as a prudent safety valve which could be drawn upon only if there is a demonstrable need for temporary foreign labor in perishable crop production,” said Norton, himself a California grower. “ . . . Our ability as a nation to regain effective control of our borders will be greatly enhanced by the inclusion of a seasonal worker program.”

The announcement drew a sharp rebuke from California Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), a member of the subcommittee and a longtime ally of the United Farm Workers Union, who charged that the White House was knuckling under to the clout of rich growers.

“It is an unprincipled and hypocritical statement which is really a reaction to the political power of one particular group,” Berman alleged.

Labor Shortage Denied

In testimony, Dolores Huerta, the UFW’s vice president, disputed contentions that there was a farm labor shortage and said federal statistics show that more than 14% of domestic farm workers were currently unemployed--twice the national unemployment rate.

She contended that a new foreign labor pool for growers would be tantamount to creating a “de facto slave market for the agricultural industry.”

It was unclear what impact the Administration stand would have on chances for final congressional passage of an immigration package. Rep. Peter W. Rodino Jr. (D-N. J.), the influential House Judiciary Committee chairman who is sponsoring his chamber’s version of the legislation, recently lamented that any attempt to add a new guest worker program onto the bill “muddies the waters” and complicates efforts at reaching a compromise.

Wilson Proposal OKd

Before voting 69 to 30 on Sept. 19 for a bill by Sen. Alan K. Simpson (R-Wyo.), the Senate narrowly approved changes pushed by Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.) that would allow up to 350,000 foreign workers to be in the fields at any one time. The temporary program would expire after three years unless it was renewed by Congress.

The Administration proposal would leave it up to a special federal commission to determine how many foreign field hands were needed. The program would mandate a gradual phase-out of the foreign worker program under a schedule that could bring it to an end sometime between seven and 22 years.