Amnesty Problems on the Farm

When Congress enacted a sweeping immigration reform law two years ago, special provisions for agricultural workers were written into it. Many experts were dubious about the provisions, but there was a practical reason for including them in the new law--the clout that agribusiness has on Capitol Hill.

The immigration reform act was designed to slow illegal immigration into this country by making it unlawful to hire illegal aliens. But it balanced that restrictionist aim with an amnesty program to help illegal immigrants legalize their status and apply for citizenship if they qualified. The industry that remains most dependent on foreign labor is agriculture, especially in states where large agribusiness farms are the norm. Growers persuaded Congress to grant them an extra six months before enforcing the new law on farms, so, while other employers had to comply starting June 1, farmers did not have to abide by it until today.

Dec. 1 was also the deadline for immigrants who have worked in agriculture to apply for amnesty. In recent weeks the Immigration and Naturalization Service has noted a high incidence of fraudulent applications under that program. The most common problem is the use of false documents to prove that applicants worked on farms. But some of these fraudulent applications are questionable for understandable reasons. Employment in agriculture is often informal, with workers picked up by crew bosses at street corners, then paid in cash at the end of a day or week. There is simply not much documentation in such a catch-as-catch-can system. Some of the amnesty applicants interviewed by Times reporters said that they were tempted to file fraudulent documents because they had no other way to “prove” that they had worked in agriculture.

INS officials estimate that 1 million persons will seek amnesty under the agricultural exemption--far more than were expected. The INS has been admirably flexible in dealing with the 1.7 million applicants for amnesty under the regular provisions of the new law. It is important that these heretofore exploitable people came out of hiding. For that same reason, the INS should be generous in dealing with the applicants for amnesty under the agricultural program. Certainly cases of blatant or egregious fraud must be prosecuted, but in the case of close or judgment calls we urge the INS to come down on the side of the applicant. It would be terribly unfair for the workers to suffer because Congress, at the behest of farm lobbyists, drafted the provisions of an important new law hurriedly or vaguely.