INS Eases Rules on Illegal Farm Workers

Amid complaints of serious farm worker shortages in the West, the Reagan Administration Tuesday revised its rules on granting legal resident status to hundreds of thousands of illegal workers and expanded the legalization program.

Among the changes, the Immigration and Naturalization Service delayed the cutoff date by which agricultural workers must have either applied for legal status while still in their own country or entered this country to qualify for the new farm worker legalization program. Thus, potentially thousands of additional harvesters of perishable crops are covered under provisions of the new immigration law.

New Cutoff Date

Under previous rules, illegal farm workers were ineligible to apply for legal status in this country if they arrived after May 1. That date now has been changed to next Friday, June 26. Under the farm worker legalization program, which began June 1, the workers still must prove that they worked in the perishable agriculture industry in this country for at least 90 days during the year ending May 1, 1986.

The American Farm Bureau Federation has estimated that at least 500,000 illegal immigrants harvest seasonal crops annually in this country. Immigration experts have said that at least half that number could qualify for legal status under the program.

The INS announced that its 107 legalization centers are prepared to stay open evenings and weekends, if necessary, to accommodate agriculture workers, and the agency said that it will open a new border processing center Friday at Calexico, Calif.

And, fearing a crush of applicants at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, causing applicants to avoid that center, the State Department announced that legalization applications will also be processed at consulates in Monterrey and Hermosillo--and perhaps other sites if the volume warrants.

“By effectively using these provisions, we believe that the labor needs of agriculture can be met without decimating the law even before it has been fully implemented,” INS Commissioner Alan C. Nelson said.

The growers’ fears of a labor shortage focused on the Pacific Northwest, with Oregon agricultural officials estimating that the loss in the strawberry crop alone could total $6 million and that there would be losses in other crops. In Washington state, growers were able to harvest the strawberry crop but struggled with an estimated 3,000 fewer pickers than normal. California growers have reported spot labor shortages and crop losses.

Oregon farmers are struggling to harvest their cherry crop with about 10,000 fewer workers than usual and could face severe labor shortages for harvesting berry crops, Dalton Hobbs, Agricultural Department spokesman, said.

Bombarded with such complaints, the INS made its changes after a day of meetings between INS officials and critics in Congress. The shifts represent a victory for advocates of farm workers and growers, but the critics said that the changes do not go far enough.

Sen. Pete Wilson (R-Calif.), who charged that “cumbersome” federal procedures left the California migrant worker pool short by at least 50,000 workers, said in an interview that the INS “made an improvement but not a significant improvement” because the new application deadline of June 26 does not leave enough time to advertise the changes.

Wilson said that many illegal workers are “either confused or frightened or both” by the INS program and still will not come forward.

‘Real Sticking Point’

Moreover, Wilson said, the INS made no change in its requirements for documents, which he called “the real sticking point” in the farm worker legalization program.

In a letter to President Reagan last week, Wilson, who represents the nation’s largest farm state, said that, when illegal workers approach border immigration officials, they should be allowed entry if they make a “non-frivolous” application for special agriculture worker status by declaring which documents they will later present to prove that they had worked the required 90 days.

“The failure to (immediately) provide full and complete documentation of eligibility . . . should not be a basis of exclusion,” he wrote.

Wilson asserted that his letter had helped bring about the new INS rules and said he will “go back to the White House” to complain further about the documentation requirements.

At the Farmworker Justice Fund, Kristine Poplawski, litigation director, said the June 26 cutoff date is “better, but I think it’ll still get challenged in court.” She agreed with Wilson that the date does not leave enough time for publicity, adding that the INS has “condemned workers to illegality.”

But a Justice Department official retorted: “If we had said Jan. 1, 1993, that still would not have been enough time, as far as our critics are concerned.”