OCEANA (Michigan) HERALD-JOURNAL

April 19, 2006

Migrants begin return to Oceana as nation debates immigration law

As the debate over immigration law rages among U.S. lawmakers, residents and guest workers across the country, Oceana prepares to welcome back the annual migrant farmworker population.

Exactly how many people that population includes alludes even the best of census takers and experts.

During the agricultural season (roughly between April and October) there is an influx of migrants from South Texas, Florida, and Mexico among other places. Dr. Rosenbaum calculates there are as many as 3,648 hired farm workers alone during the agricultural season in Oceana County. Nobody knows the exact number of migrants that come to Oceana County during any given year,” according to The Search for Legitimacy: Mexican Migrant Workers in Michigan, written in 2002 by Israel Cuéllar, Ph.D. and Rene Rosenbaum, Ph.D. with the Julian Samora Research Institute at Michigan State University.

Rosenbaum estimated in 2002 Oceana had a total resident Hispanic population of 3,119, representing 11.6 percent of the county’s population and the highest percentage of Hispanics of any of Michigan’s counties.

Last year’s Michigan Department of Agriculture licensed migrant housing site listing for Oceana indicated 118 camps, with 383 units and capacity for 2,587 people.

While the migrant workforce serves the agricultural community in Oceana, an array of local, state and federal programs are available to serve the migrants.

Among these are the Northwest Michigan Health Services Shelby Migrant Clinic; Migrant Head Start in New Era, Walkerville and Hart; Employment Training; and migrant education programs in Hart, Shelby, and Walkerville schools. Other human resource services are available to migrant farmworkers, as well as the general population.

Reliance on the migrant workforce has increased over the years, according to discussion at the 2006 Migrant Labor Update meeting hosted by the MSU Extension Service March 30 in Hart.

“If we were to rely on that labor force (local) to get the job done, we could never do it,” said Chris Maciborski with Dutchman Tree Farms in Manton. Maciborski outlined Dutchman’s successful use of the federal H2A program for migrant labor with non-U.S. citizens.

“There’s just not that American workforce you can rely on to get the job done,” he said.

Local growers echoed the sentiment, and expressed concern over immigration law changes which might mean drastic lack of workers for their farms.

After the U.S. House passed an immigration bill in December, which would tighten access to the U.S. with more walls along the U.S.-Mexico border; make it a felony to be in the country illegally; and tighten laws against citizens who help undocumented immigrants — the U.S. Senate debated more lenient versions, before breaking for a two-week recess April 7.

Meanwhile, local growers say fewer migrants are willing to return to Mexico, for fear of not being able to return in the annual trek north for work.