U.S. agriculture needs foreign workers, grower says

BY STEPHANIE SANCHEZ, SUN STAFF WRITER

There is a huge reservoir of workers south of the border that could fill our needs, president of the Yuma Fresh Vegetable Association said Friday.

"There is a lot of criticism that we've been getting about why do we need foreign workers. I can tell you just from my own experience, that getting some of our domestic born and raised citizens to do so is pretty tough, even though they don't have anything else available," Rick Rademacher said at a Border Trade Alliance panel discussion on federal policy impacting regional border issues and economy.

"For some reason, parents don't want their kids to grow up to be farm workers but it's not that bad. We pay pretty good wages for the entry level, $10 to $12 an hour, full insurance, health insurance is available for their families ... good working conditions as we can make it for working outside, it's not a bad life but it is hard work and these people really earn their money."

Joining the panel were officials from the Department of Homeland Security. They explained how the federal government is working on several initiatives to find solutions that will secure the borders and positively impact border communities.

Rademacher said the guest worker program is not really made to help the farming industry.

"Basically we have to bring in people as a huge block, have them arrive on a certain date and leave on a certain date. So if your crop is early or late because of weather ... you're stuck. If it rains you still have to pay them even though they don't work and we also have to provide housing and food.

"That is kind of unfair because most of those people, as I would want to do, want to go home every night and see their families," Rademacher said. "The program won't allow us to do that. We have to book, or build or hire labor camps or hotels to put people up when their house is just 27 miles south of here."

More than 93 million identities are in the U.S. VISIT database, according to Shonnie Lyon, acting deputy director of U.S. VISIT of DHS. U.S. VISIT is part of a continuum of security measures that begins overseas and continues through a visitor's arrival and departure from the United States. It incorporates eligibility determinations made by both DHS and state.

According to Lyon, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol runs about 100,000 identity checks a day of people entering the U.S. and each identity is verified in 10 seconds. To accurately expedite those services they are looking at replacing every single scanner that it is out there now in the U.S. with a 10-print device.

The 10-print device (10 finger digital finger scan) is touted as more efficient, accurate and quicker, according to DHS.

"We're still in an exploration phase as to what is in the realm of possible as of today ... what's possible in two years, what's possible in three, five years. There's not a silver bullet to fix that'll be able to do it for land border," Lyon said.

"It's been proven again and again, no port (of entry) looks exactly the same and there is no one-size-fits-all solution."

One of the other things that DHS is doing to improve services is to place additional fingerprint scanners at different CBP locations to expedite visa application processes, Lyon said.