|
COX NEWS SERVICE
May 20, 2008
Bill offers work visas for illegals
Farm-labor measure tucked into
By Eunice Moscoso
WASHINGTON -- The Senate dives back into the immigration debate this
week, with a possible vote looming on a measure that would give
temporary visas to farm workers who are in the United States illegally.
The measure, sponsored by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., is billed as
an emergency relief for farmers facing a labor shortage.
"Agriculture needs a consistent workforce. Without it, they can't plant,
they can't prune, they can't pick, and they can't pack," Feinstein said
last week after the measure was approved by a key committee. "The time
has come for Congress to step up to the plate."
She said the measure is needed to stop more of them from moving
operations to other countries.
"We need this legislation because in the last year, 13,280 farms in the
United States have shut down, and others have moved their operation to
Mexico," she said.
The bill would allow farm employees who have worked in the United States
over the past four years to work legally for the next five. It is capped
at 1.35 million participants.
The future of the measure is uncertain. It was approved by the Senate
Appropriations Committee as an amendment to a large spending bill for
the Iraq war. The House version, passed by committee, does not include a
similar amendment, making it unclear whether it would survive to a final
bill.
In addition, procedural maneuvers in the Senate could be used to block a
vote on this and other amendments to the broader Iraq legislation.
Groups that oppose illegal immigration are lobbying lawmakers to kill
the Feinstein measure.
"As far as we are concerned, it is an amnesty," said Rosemary Jenks,
director of government relations of Numbers USA, a group that supports
lower levels of immigration.
Jenks said the amendment rewards employers and workers who have broken
the law and sends the wrong message, encouraging more illegal
immigration.
Lobbying by this and other organizations, including the Federation for
American Immigration Reform, helped to kill a major immigration overhaul
last year that included a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.
Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., said Monday on the Senate floor that the
Feinstein amendment and other immigration-related amendments are an
effort to rush through a "back-door amnesty" without full evaluation by
lawmakers and the American people.
The Feinstein bill "is very, very bad policy, bad legislation and should
not become law," he said.
Sen. Saxby Chambliss, R-Ga., ranking member of the Senate Agriculture
Committee, opposes the Feinstein amendment and plans to vote against it,
said his spokeswoman, Lindsay Mabry.
"Sen. Chambliss thinks this is not only the wrong vehicle to deal with
this issue (the Iraq spending bill) but he believes this is absolutely
the wrong approach," she said.
Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, a liaison to the White House on immigration
issues, said the Iraq spending measure should be passed "clean," without
unrelated amendments, said his spokesman Brian Walsh.
"Immigration reform remains one of the senator's highest priorities, and
he hopes the Democratic leadership will return to it this year, but it
should not be used to delay this important bill for our troops," Walsh
said.
Craig Regelbrugge, co-chairman of the Agriculture Coalition for
Immigration Reform, an industry group that supports more visas, said
Feinstein's measure comes as the United States is losing market share to
foreign producers in fresh fruit and vegetable production.
Nearly a third of the fresh fruit and a fifth of the fresh vegetables
consumed in the United States are now imported, he said.
"The facts are stark. Unless Congress acts to ensure stable and legally
authorized farm labor, we will soon be as dependent upon foreign nations
to provide us food as we are energy," Regelbrugge said.
|