PUEBLO (Colorado) CHIEFTAIN

September 5, 2007

Editorial

Steamlining H-2As

THERE IS no doubt that there are fewer field workers for the region’s produce crops this year.

The Colorado General Assembly passed tough legislation last year seeking to stem the tide of illegal immigrants coming into the state. As a result, farmers say that fewer legal immigrants have shown up this year for fear of being hassled by law enforcement officers.

Two state legislators are seeking a way to bring in more legal immigrants from Mexico utilizing existing federal procedures. Sen. Abel Tapia, a Pueblo Democrat, and Rep. Marsha Looper, a Calhan Republican, have banded together to use an existing federal guest worker program called H-2A and make it work more expeditiously.

Rep. Looper has been in discussions with state, federal and Mexican officials about their proposal. She and Sen. Tapia want to establish a state program - or one contracted out to a private entity - to match legal migrant workers with Colorado employers, be they in the agricultural industry or others which use foreign workers.

Rep. Looper would like to use the existing international trade office Colorado already has in Guadalajara, Mexico’s second largest city, to get the worker-matching program off the ground.

The H-2A program has been mired in red tape, making it difficult for Mexican and other Latin American workers to get into the United States legally. That has in some measure contributed to the numbers who sneak into this country illegally.

We support the efforts of Sen. Tapia and Rep. Looper to get legal migrants to the employers who rely on them. In the Arkansas Valley, from the St. Charles Mesa eastward, agriculture is the No. 1 sustainer of the region’s economy.