MONTROSE (Colorado) DAILY PRESS

January 18, 2007

Recent bill to help agriculture, immigrants

Robert Allen, Daily Press Writer

MONTROSE — Sen. Ken Salazar (D-Colo.) cosponsored a bill introduced last week intended to ease the burdens of farmers and the immigrant workers they hire.

“The senator (Salazar) is supportive of the bill in its form as standalone,” Drew Nannis, Salazar’s press secretary, said. However, the senator would like to see it passed as part of comprehensive immigration reform that would attend to problems such as border security and human rights as well.

The bipartisan Senate Bill 237, known as AgJOBS, would allow illegal immigrants who have worked in agriculture at least 150 days of the past two years to receive a “blue card.” This would entitle them to temporary legal resident status, allowing them to travel in and out of the United States at will.

The bill also proposes a restructuring of the H-2A guest worker program. This would make the complicated process of importing labor easier and less expensive for the employers. It would also help to protect the employers from lawsuits.

“It’s just a poor way to do it — it’s typical piecemeal,” John Harold, owner of Tuxedo Corn, said. “If I was president, I’d lock those people in the House chambers and the Senate chambers, turn the toilets off and say, ‘Get the job done.’”

Harold doesn’t like legislators singling out agriculture, reinforcing public perception that most illegal immigrants work on farms while about 93 percent of them work in other fields, he said.

Comprehensive immigration reform is a high priority for the Senate leaders, Nannis said.

“There’s reason for more optimism now than there was last year,” Nannis said. “The stumbling block last year was house leaders who are now Democrats and were Republicans.”

One complaint with the AgJOBS bill is that the “blue card” would allow people who cheated the system by crossing U.S. borders illegally a path to becoming legal.

Sen. Wayne Allard (R-Colo.) hasn’t backed legislation of this type “because it leads to amnesty, which rewards illegal behavior by leading to citizenship,” Steve Wymer, spokesman for Allard, said.

It’s really not fair to those who have abided by the law and gone home after their visas expire each year for those who didn’t go home to end up with legal status, Harold said.

If the “blue card” workers continue doing farm work 150 days per year for an additional three years, are not convicted of any serious crimes and pay a $500 application fee, they may then become eligible for permanent legal resident status, according to the bill.

“We are definitely in favor of AgJOBS,” Julien Ross, coordinator for Colorado Immigrant Rights Coalition, said. “It’s not the full comprehensive reform package we laid out in our platform. However, it is realistic.”

Under current law, it’s difficult for producers to know how much help they will have each year because of a nationwide limit to the number of visas and bureaucratic issues.

“Do we go ahead and plant this crop?” Harold said. “If we do, will we have the people to farm it?

“I think that it’s a case where they haven’t done a comprehensive program and it’s left some people in the lurch.”