Fears of Farm Labor Shortage Spur Legalizing of Mexican Field Hands

A smile flickered across the weathered face of Antonio Torres Suarez as he stood at a counter in the U.S. Embassy here.

For more than 20 years, Torres has been jumping the U.S. border to harvest crops on American farms to bring money home to his family in the little town of Jalpan in Central Mexico.

But this year Torres won’t have to sneak across the border and trek through the murderous deserts of the American Southwest as he has done in the past to avoid capture and deportation by the U.S. Border Patrol.

This year Torres will be able to walk in broad daylight across the border at an official port of entry to the United States.

Torres is one of several hundred Mexican field hands who have qualified for entry into the United States during a modest worker legalization drive in Mexico that began July 1, spurred largely by fears of a farm labor shortage in the Western states.

Promotion Kept Low-Key

Efforts to promote the legalization program for farm workers who qualify for residence in the United States under the Immigration Reform Act, which was passed by Congress last fall, have been kept low-key in Mexico partly because the Mexican government looks on the legislation as an invitation for its citizens to emigrate.

The Mexican government, which must approve mass media advertising, has denied requests by U.S. officials and an American growers’ organization to advertise the farm worker legalization program in Mexico.

“We can’t, at least right now, put out big advertisements for the program,” said Richard R. Peterson, consul general of the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City.

“The Mexican (government officials’) attitude,” he said, “is that if somebody has already expressed an interest in the program, they’re not going to make it difficult for them. (But) they don’t want people enticed into the program or lured away from jobs here.”

But jobs are very scarce in Mexico, and it is hard to conceive that many would go unfilled for very long. A more important consideration may be the damage to the economy if the money brought home from American farms by Mexican field hands dries up.

Many Mexican farm laborers who live with their families in villages south of the border go north seasonally only to bring money home, and they have no desire to live in the United States.

The new immigration law, however, clearly encourages permanent residence in the United States. American government officials and attorneys familiar with the law say that maintaining a home and family in Mexico while working in the United States is possible under immigration regulations, but it requires familiarity with confusing rules of travel and employment in order not to lose one’s legal status as a resident in the United States.

Ironically, some growers in the United States claim that the new immigration law, far from enticing people to leave Mexico, is frightening them into staying home, which they maintain contributed to a severe shortage of farm labor in Washington and Oregon in June and caused scattered shortages in California.

Higher Wages Feared

Growers generally argue that they cannot afford to increase wages to attract domestic workers to fill shortages, although some concede that higher wages will become necessary to ensure a stable labor supply, whether it is foreign or domestic.

Under the new Immigration Reform Act, farm laborers who qualify for legal residence in the United States are not required to work in agriculture, causing many growers to fear that the newly legalized workers will seek better pay and less strenuous labor on urban jobs.

The immigration law provides, among its many and complex provisions, that undocumented foreign field hands who worked a minimum of 90 days in perishable crops on American farms during the 12 months ending May 1, 1986, are eligible to become legal residents of the United States. The law also provides for legal sanctions beginning Dec. 1, 1988, against growers who knowingly hire undocumented workers.

Thousands Processed

Since the 18-month application period for the special agricultural worker program begun June 1, officials of the Immigration and Naturalization Service have processed more than 55,800 applications from previously undocumented foreign agricultural workers--the largest single nationality group from Mexico--who were already in the United States.

While there has been widespread confusion over the program in the United States, there seems to be even more uncertainty south of the border. Only 10 people applied for the program within Mexico during all of June.

Many Western farmers blame the new law for labor shortages. But the farm labor market in the western United States is complex, and it appears that the reported farm labor deficits during some harvests were primarily caused by early and bountiful crops rather than a decline in the numbers of workers who cross the border. California Employment Development Department figures show, for example, that there were actually more farm workers employed in the state this June than in June, 1986.

Greater Than Demand

By the end of July the department reported that “the labor supply exceeds the demand in many parts of the state.”

In addition, the INS reports of border arrests showed a strong upswing for June and July after a sharp drop in April, indicating that undocumented workers are again flowing in large numbers across the border.

Nevertheless, Employment Development Department analysts predict temporary labor shortages by the end of August in the farm-rich San Joaquin Valley. Western growers, in the meantime, were able to prod the U.S federal government into making the farm worker documentation process somewhat easier south of the border.

Before the clamor over alleged labor shortages, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City was the only location in the entire country where special farm worker applications under the new immigration law were processed. By contrast, there are 107 INS legalization offices in the United States that handle both farm worker and general amnesty applications under the immigration law.

Pressure From Growers

Under pressure from American growers, on July 1 U.S. officials set up three additional offices to process applications of workers in Mexico: the U.S. Consulate at Monterrey in northeastern Mexico, the U.S. Consulate at Hermosillo in the northwestern part of the country and, to serve the six northernmost states, the INS port of entry office at the Mexicali-Calexico border crossing.

In addition, the INS declared a temporary easing of its documentation procedures.

Initially, before being allowed into the United States, workers in Mexico were required to present documents proving that they had worked the requisite 90 days on American farms.

Acquiring such documentation from American employers while forbidden to enter the United States presents a formidable problem for Mexican farm workers, most of whom are poor, many of whom are illiterate and many of whom live in remote areas of Mexico, growers and farm worker advocates argued.

Complicated Process

So, for a four-month period ending Oct. 31, farm workers who do not have sufficient documentation of employment may present U.S. officials with a “non-frivolous” claim that they worked the requisite time. They then receive 90-day permits to work in the United States while they gather needed documentation, which may be presented to INS legalization offices north of the border.

What constitutes a “non-frivolous” claim is open to interpretation, but all in all, officials are finding the Mexican applicants to be candid.

“This guy showed up in a white shirt, white pants, white shoes and a wonderful gold chain,” said Richard Harrington, supervisor of the special agricultural worker program at the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City. “And I asked, ‘Did you work in agriculture?’ And he said, ‘No, I worked in a parking lot in Los Angeles--I thought it was worth a try, anyway.’ ”

Others who have worked in agriculture are sometimes so painfully honest that they refuse to fudge the facts even at the expense of disqualifying themselves.

One More Day Needed

Officials tell of an applicant who could prove that he worked 89 days during the qualifying time period, but balked at claiming the critical 90th day even at the coaxing of documentation officers.

While private organizations have set up programs throughout the United States to help farm workers and general amnesty applicants prepare documents for the INS, there appear to be only two private organizations making such efforts in Mexico.

The Arizona Farmworkers Union is helping to fund the legalization efforts of the Cooperativa Sin Fronteras (Cooperative Without Borders) organization in the central Mexican city of Queretaro.

Laurie Martinelli, attorney with the Arizona Farmworkers Union, complains that even with the changes in the legalization program in Mexico it remains hard for laborers there to meet such requirements as the $185 application fee. She also maintains that it is extremely difficult for farm workers in Mexico to obtain passports, which are required of applicants who apply for the program in the interior of Mexico. The rural laborers, Martinelli says, often do not possess the type of documentation required by the Mexican government to obtain passports. Interestingly, those who apply for the program at the Mexicali-Calexico border do not need passports

In the meantime, Western growers have formed an organization called Alien Legalization for Agriculture that is helping Mexican farm workers prepare their documentation right at the Mexicali-Calexico border.

Buying Radio Spots

Alien Legalization for Agriculture, prohibited from airing its radio ads promoting the special agricultural worker program in Mexico, is buying time on stations on the U.S. side of the border that can be heard inside Mexico, according to Wayne Smith, general manager of the organization.

The INS, through a public relations agency, also is buying radio time explaining the program on border stations.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Embassy in Mexico City, after issuing press releases regarding the program, has seen the number of formal applications jump from 10 in June to 480 in July to 226 during the first week of August.

The campesinos come each day from all over Mexico to stand quietly outside the white wall around the U.S. Embassy, waiting for the big steel gate to open. Some come before dawn and wait for hours. On some days they stand uncomplainingly in a drizzling rain, clutching envelopes that contain their precious documents: pay stubs to prove they worked on American farms, tax statements, letters from growers.

Some wear tractor caps or straw hats; they wear nylon jackets and sweaters and old scuffed shoes or boots. And on a recent drizzly morning, one small, wiry man stood in line in a worn, dark-blue suit jacket and tie, holding his documents under his arm, protecting them with a leather binder as the rain soaked his clothes .

The workers are confused and afraid of the new law. Many, probably most, love Mexico and their towns and go north only because they must.

Antonio Torres Suarez will go again this year, and this time he will cross the border legally with a chance to become a permanent legal resident of the United States.

But that is not what he really wants.

Does he like the United States?

“Si, para ganar los dolares.”

Yes, to earn the dollars.