Senate Eases Rules for Agricultural Guest Work

In a historic move that could bring thousands more foreigners to harvest crops in California and across the nation, the Senate voted unexpectedly Thursday to overhaul the federal guest worker program and make it easier for farmers to recruit abroad.

The legislation would establish a national registry of domestic farm workers intended to help match supply and demand across regions, and would simplify the application process for employers seeking foreign workers. It also would allow farmers to provide vouchers rather than actual housing for their temporary workers and would make foreigners eligible for permanent residency if they pick crops in four consecutive seasons.

“We owe this country something better than a system that relies upon illegal immigration,” Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) told his colleagues before the 68-31 vote. “We ought to give these foreign workers the dignity of being here under the law with some dignity and some benefits.”

California’s two senators vigorously opposed the measure, which was hastily attached to a $33.2-billion bill funding the Commerce, Justice and State departments that later garnered unanimous support. They and other opponents cited a December government study that showed no shortage of farm labor and criticized the program for pandering to agribusiness.

“If the growers can’t find the workers, pay better wages, provide better working conditions,” urged Sen. Paul Wellstone (D-Minn.), citing double-digit unemployment rates in some rural areas. “The uncivilized conditions of the farm workers are a national disgrace. This is a huge step backward.”

The legislation faces an unclear fate in the House, where Republicans are divided on the question of guest workers. Some conservatives are loyal supporters of agribusiness, while others worry that migrant workers often remain in the U.S. illegally.

Sponsors of the legislation--introduced just days ago--surprised their colleagues Thursday by attaching it to a must-pass bill funding key government agencies rather than vetting it through committee hearings. That gives the measure a much better chance of becoming law: President Clinton has opposed similar changes in the guest worker program but is unlikely to veto a spending bill because such a move could shut down the government.

“This is wrong,” Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) complained of the attachment to the appropriation measure. “One [person] says it’s going to vastly increase illegal immigration, the other says it’s going to control it. One says it’s going to depress agricultural workers’ wages, another says no, it’s going to get better. And what’s the impact on American workers? We don’t know. Something like this oughtn’t be rushed through.”

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) called the program “a Trojan horse” and predicted it would make the much-maligned bracero program, terminated in 1965, “look good in retrospect.”

“In California, this will mean literally tens of thousands of additional immigrants coming into the state,” Feinstein said.

During the late-summer harvest of grapes and raisins, California employs about 436,000 farm workers, as many as 300,000 of them here illegally, according to some counts. Overall, the General Accounting Office estimates that 600,000 of the nation’s 1.6 million agricultural laborers are undocumented, while the little-used guest worker program includes only about 25,000 visas per year.

Proponents of the new program say farm owners don’t want to employ illegal immigrants--in part because Immigration and Naturalization Service raids can scare laborers from the fields and leave crops rotting--but find the visa system too complicated to wade through.

“Rounding up workers doesn’t seem to be the problem,” said Steve Danna Jr. of Danna & Danna Inc., which grows prunes, walnuts, apples, melons and other crops in Yuba City and Marysville, Calif. “Rather, rounding up legitimate, legal workers is the problem.”

The government asks growers to call a hotline to check new workers’ Social Security numbers, but Danna said he rarely uses the line because it is tough to get through.

Jack King, a spokesman for the California Farm Bureau Federation in Sacramento, said that the state has been facing spot shortages of workers but that “we’re seeing the potential for severe shortages.” The legislation, he added, will be beneficial for growers and workers.

“I’m tickled pink,” said Mark Draper, a grower and labor contractor in Indio. “Anything we can do to obtain a readily available source of workers will help.”

Draper, who employs 500 people during the year, disputed the notion that plenty of workers are available to pick crops, saying “unemployed people don’t knock down my door.” To keep trained workers coming back, Draper offers a per-box premium that brings wages to $7 or $8 an hour, and grows peppers in Bakersfield for the 2 1/2 months of the year when the Coachella Valley is not in production.

Still, finding workers “has been a struggle,” he said.

The registry, which is intended to match unemployed workers with growers who have vacancies, was among the most controversial provisions in Thursday’s Senate debate.

While many backed the concept of a database to help match laborers and jobs, others worried that few farm workers would actually get registered, creating a false perception of a labor shortage. Because of the registry, current requirements that employers advertise jobs and recruit domestically before bringing in foreigners would be lifted.

“Most farm workers earn less than $12,000 a year. They don’t have computers at home,” complained Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.). “Most farm workers don’t even have telephones.”

The changes in housing help was also a major concern, as Kennedy, Feinstein and others worried that there is not enough affordable housing in agricultural areas and that foreigners would find it difficult to negotiate the market.

“These guest workers will pocket the meager allowance that’s provided here and they’ll sleep in the ditch banks,” predicted Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Mission Hills), who led the fight against similar guest worker programs in 1996 and 1986.

Ironically, Berman and other pro-immigration liberals who oppose the legislation for fear it will depress wages and worsen working conditions often use the fear of illegal immigration to win support. Migrant workers rarely leave when they are supposed to, they point out, instead becoming immigration beachheads as their families and friends follow them to America.

The new program, which permits foreigners to work in the U.S. for up to 10 months a year, also includes a direct immigration incentive. Once employed, workers can apply for a three-year extension of their temporary visa; after four consecutive harvests, workers would automatically qualify for a green card.

“We have poured money into increasing the Border Patrol, we’re finally setting up meaningful barriers to illegal entry,” Berman said in an interview. “This amendment blows a hole through those barriers so large it makes a mockery of thinking we’re going to stop illegal entries.”

Wilgoren reported from Washington and Groves from Los Angeles.