YAKIMA HERALD-REPUBLIC

May 19, 2007

Cautious reactions to new immigration plan locally

By LEAH BETH WARD and ELOISA RUANO GONZALEZ

Growers and immigrants in the Yakima Valley are skittish but mostly encouraged by a broad agreement on immigration reform announced this week by Senate leaders.

They are nervous about the devil in the details to come, uncertain of how such a vast program might work.

Growers wonder if they'll be subject to fines for unknowingly hiring undocumented workers.

Immigrants worry about how they'd pay a proposed $5,000 penalty on top of visa fees and other processing costs. Families -- already separated by bureaucratic backlogs -- want to know if the agreement will help or hurt them.

For 37-year-old Francisca, the prospect of having to leave the country to apply for legal residency is frightening.

"I wouldn't want to go," the single mother of three said. "How can I leave my kids? They're studying and doing well."

And she said the fears of separation have infected her children, who are 13, 10 and 1.

"They're afraid, because who's going to feed them and take them to school?" she said. "They're not responsible (to take care of) themselves."

Growers' apprehensions, meantime, center more on politics.

"It was not a sure thing earlier in the week," Mike Gempler, executive director of the Yakima-based Washington Growers League, said Friday. "So it's a big relief that we have seen the first step taken and now I think it'll be easier to iron out a lot of differences."

Attacks by critics on the left and right have already begun, and supporters will have to parry opponents to get the agreement through the Senate.

"We're encouraged, but there is so far to go in this journey," Miles Kohl, executive director of the Yakima Valley Growers-Shippers Association, said Friday.

"Outliers on both sides are not going to be happy and so I think we'll see leadership in both the House and Senate voice concerns," Kohl said.

Congress can pass a bill but the out-of-pocket costs for workers could be prohibitive and workers may choose to stay under the radar, some said.

"As long as there's not another path or alternative, they'll still stay here," said Manuel, a 43-year-old undocumented Yakima resident.

But some might apply for legal residency if they have a payment plan, he added.

Leaving the country is what scares him most, he said, because he's afraid his family wouldn't be allowed back in.

"I don't trust anyone," he said. "Politicians are dirty."

But with growers staring at another season of tight labor, Kohl and others are urging Congress to act before the August recess and the onset of the partisan presidential campaign season.

"We have to have something now," Kohl said.

Already, growers have applied for permission to bring more than 1,000 foreign guest workers to the state compared with fewer than 800 last year, according to the state Employment Security Department.

The $6 billion tree-fruit industry alone needs 30,000 to 40,000 seasonal workers. In recent years, those workers have been attracted to other industries, particularly construction.

"A lot of that migrant workforce is simply declining," Kohl said. "You can't get 30,000 people for two or three months even if you're paying $12 an hour."

Statewide, the agricultural workforce numbers about 90,000. Anywhere from 50 percent to 80 percent of those workers are believed to be carrying false documents or none at all.

Gempler said growers will have to live with an electronic employment verification program.

Meanwhile, the United Farm Workers supports the agreement.

"It's great for farm workers," said Steve Witte, the Portland-based regional director for the union.

Also on board is the Washington State Farm Bureau.

Spokespersons for U.S. Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash., and Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said it's premature to comment on the proposal.

"When a plan does come before the House, Doc will judge it based on whether it will make us safer and meet needs of Central Washington agriculture," said Jessica Gleason, who works in the congressman's Pasco office.

Cantwell's office also said it had no details but released this statement:

"Without help farmers can't plant, they can't harvest and they won't survive. The immigration proposal Congress sends to the president needs to help establish a consistent workforce for our agriculture industry."