Back in the summer of 1994, I hopped on a light rail train in downtown San Jose. As soon as I got in and found a seat, I noticed something wasn't right. The train was full of passengers, but it was abnormally quiet. I quickly found out why. A gentleman who had been standing on one side of the train came over and sat next to me. As he did so, the eyes of the other passengers followed him.
He began talking about how crucial it was for voters to pass the "Save Our State" initiative, or the more commonly known Proposition 187 that was on the California ballot that fall. The proposition would have denied all forms of public services to illegal immigrants.
He turned to me and asked in a loud voice, "How do you feel about all these illegal immigrants coming to this country and using up all of our resources?" It seemed that he'd already asked similar questions to other passengers before I came onboard.
I was irritated with the inconsistent arguments surrounding Proposition 187, so I told him, "Why rant and complain about it to me? Contact your representatives. They're the ones who write the laws that allow foreigners to come here to work." At the time, I just happened to have a short newspaper article in my brief case that I pulled out and handed it to him to read. It was titled, "Congress approves 300,000 temporary agricultural worker visas." He read it and shook his head saying, "We have to do something about this!" I responded again, "Contact your representatives."
The short article I gave him had been buried deep inside the newspaper and outlined the need for hundreds of thousands of agricultural workers. The major headlines, on the other hand, were filled with stories and commentaries about the social burdens of immigration.
A decade and a half later, our elected representatives are still making laws that have a direct impact on both legal and illegal immigration. On March 15, the Department of Labor will implement stricter rules and regulations regarding the H-2A temporary agricultural worker program. The new rules will include wage increases and job protections for farm workers and will require growers to recruit qualified U.S. workers by creating a national electronic job registry for all H-2A jobs. Domestic workers can apply for these jobs before the Department issues any H-2A worker visas.
Last year, according to the Department of Labor, farm owners filed more than 100,000 H-2A visa requests for temporary agricultural workers. The department certified and accepted 94 percent of the applications, or more than 86,000. To meet the demand for workers to harvest their crops, growers, for the most part, have supported fewer restrictions for agricultural workers not more.
If the H-2A visa request process becomes too expensive and arduous, growers may not participate in the program and will likely resort to older hiring practices - hire any worker willing to do the work regardless of legal status. Some growers may even scale back their crop capacity. Others have threatened to move abroad where workers and land are abundant.
Currently, Arizona and California produce about half of the nation's fresh fruits and vegetables according to Western Growers, an agricultural trade association. Tom Nassif, Western Growers' president and CEO said, "Even with an economy that is suffering through 10 percent unemployment, domestic workers are not applying for these (farmworker) jobs. We know our produce is going to be harvested by foreign workers, the question is, will it be here in the U.S. or will it be abroad? We are already dependent on foreign energy; do we really want to become dependent on foreign food? Our government officials have got to quit tinkering around with regulations and really address the problem ... "
The problem is a legitimate need for agricultural workers that is not being met within our domestic workforce. If the process for requesting foreign workers is cumbersome, and regulations for hiring them tightened, then the process will continue to create a magnet for illegal immigration.
The frustration of the gentleman on the train 16 years ago is the same frustration expressed by so many today. Whether debated around a dinner table or vented openly in public, the U.S. still hasn't come to grips with the conflicting messages we broadcast at our borders: "help wanted" yet "no trespassing." One way to deal with this conflict is to change the laws. Give farmworkers temporary legal resident status and the freedom to travel outside the U.S. For those who are frustrated by the mixed messages of immigration, my advice is still the same: contact your representatives.
Mario Banuelos has lived in Morgan Hill for 21 years. He has served on the south County Dayworker Committee and is a member of the Morgan Hill Community Foundation. He is married and has four children.
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