Crops Rot While Trump-Led Immigration Backlash Idles Farm Work

[riversedge]

Crops Rot While Trump-Led Immigration Backlash Idles Farm Work


http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2016-06-06/crops-rot-while-trump-led-immigration-backlash-idles-farm-lobby
Alan Bjerga

June 6, 2016 — 6:00 PM CDT
Updated on June 7, 2016 — 1:05 PM CDT

1465294988_160607_california_farm_getty



Farmer Joe Del Bosque walks by a cantaloupe field on April 23, 2015, in Firebaugh, California.
Photographer: Justin Sullivan/Getty Images


Fresh produce harvests limited while migrant debate languishes
Secure-border solution may send fruits, vegetables to Mexico


The death of meaningful U.S. immigration reform, done in by Washington partisanship and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s incendiary comments on foreigners, is leaving crops withering in the field and the farm lobby with nowhere to turn as a labor shortage intensifies.

Carlos Castaneda watched one-quarter of his Napa cabbages rot in three California fields this spring as 37 immigrant laborers scheduled to arrive March 13 under a farmworker visa program were delayed by bureaucratic paperwork. He said he wants changes to an immigration system that causes his crops to rot unharvested. But he has little hope that will happen in this political climate.

“The rhetoric that’s getting preached is pushing xenophobia,” said Castaneda, 39, whose parents are Mexican immigrants. “You can’t call an immigrant a murderer. You can’t paint them with that brush."

About a quarter of the U.S. farm workforce, more than 300,000 people, don’t have valid immigration papers, according to a 2009 survey by the Pew Hispanic Center. Other studies suggest the number may be more than 1 million. Proportions of undocumented workers tend to be higher in the hand-harvested fruit, vegetable and horticulture sectors, as well as large dairy farms where milking happens year-round.

The last major push for reform, a 2013 agreement that agriculture groups worked out with senators Dianne Feinstein of California and Michael Bennet of Colorado, both Democrats, along with Republicans Marco Rubio of Florida and Orrin Hatch of Utah, allowed up to 337,000 farmworker visas over three years. The current H-2A visa program for agriculture laborers last year granted 139,832 temporary stays, according to Labor Department data...............

[beachbum bob]

1. I think agriculture took a big hit in several southern states too

as Alabama, Miss, Georgia all based some heavy hitting immigrant laws...leading to farm worker shortages and lost harvesting

[Cassiopeia]

2. If they paid a fair wage for the labor

maybe they wouldn't need to rely on foreign workers.

[amandabeech]

3. Many farmers don't bother with the ag visa program.

They claim that the paperwork is too onerous, and refuse to ask their U.S. reps or trade associations to do anything to stream line it.

Most farmers in my area just twiddle their thumbs and expect the workers to show up.

Once workers get to the US and obtain decent ID, fake or otherwise, they look for other types of work, like working in the processing plants.

No one likes field work. I did some field work before I was old enough to get a work permit, and didn't even think about going back to the fields after that.

In one of my summer jobs, I had to clean the men's room in a tourist trap a couple of times a day in addition to other duties. Believe me, cleaning the men's room was 10X worse than field work. Sorry guys, but you sure do know how to make a stinky mess.

[yurbud]

4. farmers like illegal immigrants, especially the illegal part

because it lets them pay the workers whatever they like and not worry about any violations being reported to the department of labor.

[greymattermom]

5. so farms will be in Mexico

where these folks are allowed to work legally. Maybe that will save some water for California.

[libodem]

6. Yep

They get paid cash, off the tax rolls. Republicans love tax free wages. No fica.