[Congressional Record Volume 151, Number 14 (Thursday, February 10, 2005)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1288-S1289]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. CRAIG (for himself, Mr. Kennedy, Mr. Hagel, Mr. Specter, 
        Mr. Lautenberg, Mr. Voinovich, Mr. Schumer, Mr. Lugar, Mr. 
        Durbin, Mr. Coleman, Mr. Kerry, Mr. McCain, Mr. Dodd, Mr. 
        Cochran, Mr. Domenici, Ms. Cantwell, Mr. DeWine, Mr. Lieberman, 
        Mr. Burns, Mrs. Boxer, Mr. Roberts, Mr. Leahy, Mr. Hatch, Mr. 
        Akaka, Mr. Lott, Mr. Nelson of Nebraska, Mr. Brownback, Mr. 
        Levin, Mr. Stevens, Mr. Wyden, Mr. Martinez, Mr. Salazar, Mr. 
        Chafee, and Mrs. Murray):
  S. 359. A bill to provide for the adjustment of status of certain 
foreign agricultural workers, to amend the Immigration and Nationality 
Act to reform the H-2A worker program under that Act, to provide a 
stable, legal agricultural workforce, to extend basic legal protections 
and better working conditions to more workers, and for other purposes; 
to the Committee on the Judiciary.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I have introduced what I believe to be a 
very important piece of legislation that the Senate will consider this 
year, dealing with an issue that is certainly on the minds of many 
Americans and No. 1 on the minds of some Americans. It is on the 
question of immigration reform and dealing with it in an appropriate 
fashion, to create a transparency in the process, and to begin to end 
and identify the 8 million to 12 million undocumented foreign nationals 
currently in our country.
  Over the last 5 years, I have worked in a bipartisan way with many of 
my colleagues, and literally hundreds of organizations around the 
country, in focusing on a specific area of immigration, and that is the 
H-2A area, or those who work in agricultural employment.
  What we have discovered over the course of time is a broken system, 
which in large part now allows the possibility of well over a million 
foreign nationals working illegally in this country, but working in an 
economy where they are desperately needed to bring the food products 
from our fields, to process those products and put them on the shelves 
of the American consuming public. As a result of that great concern, I, 
working with my colleague Senator Ted Kennedy in the Senate, with 
Congressman Howard Berman and Congressman Chris Cannon over in the 
House for some time, have produced legislation that brings all sides of 
this very diverse and oftentimes very contentious issue together, to 
therefore be able to offer tonight a piece of legislation that has at 
this moment nearly 40 Members of the Senate, Democrats and Republicans, 
supporting it; whereas last year, identical legislation had over 63 
Senators, and we believe we will have that same support again this 
year.
  Americans, after 9/11, cried out to the Congress and to our 
Government, saying: What is wrong? Why were people allowed to come to 
our country who then turned on us to kill our citizens? Why did we let 
that happen?
  Well, we learned that the immigration policies of our country were 
largely broken and that the Congress, over years and years, had turned 
its back on the issue, either not funding immigration appropriately or 
not enforcing the laws already on the books regarding immigration.
  As a result of that, it is now estimated that there are between 8 
million to 12 million foreign nationals living in this country, the 
vast majority of them working and living in law-abiding, peaceful ways, 
but working here to better themselves and their families for their own 
human well-being. We did find out there were a few who were here to do 
evil things to Americans.
  In the legislation I bring to the floor tonight, in legislation we 
call the Agricultural Job Opportunity Benefit and Security Act, I focus 
rather narrowly on what is believed to be about 1.6 million of the 
total number, to recognize that clearly the vast majority of them are 
here for peaceful purposes, to better themselves and their families, 
and, in the meantime, cause American agriculture to work as effectively 
and efficiently as it does.
  Oftentimes, these men and women do work that American citizens do not 
want to do or will not do--toiling in the hot fields of American 
agriculture day in and day out, dirty, tough work, but seeing it as an 
opportunity for themselves and an opportunity for their children to 
have a better life.
  In so failing to recognize that need, we have oftentimes caused them 
to live in the back alleys and the shadows of America in an illegal 
status, but we still rely heavily on them for the services they 
provide.
  Americans need and expect a stable, predictable, legal workforce in 
American agriculture, and consumers in our country deserve a safe, 
stable, domestic food supply. Willing American workers deserve a system 
that puts them first in line for the jobs that are available with a 
fair market wage, and our legislation does that. All workers deserve 
decent treatment and protection of basic rights under the law, and our 
legislation does that. American citizens and taxpayers deserve secure 
borders, a safe homeland, and a government that works, and our 
legislation helps accomplish those three very important goals.
  Yet we are threatened on all fronts because of a growing shortage now 
of legal workers in American agriculture. Last year, in 2 of the 12 
months, we were net importers of agricultural food products. For the 
first time in the history of our country that happened. I grew up being 
told--and most of us did--that because of our great American 
agriculture always being able to feed us, we were a secure, safe 
nation, and our food supply was such that we would never be dependent 
upon foreign interests to feed the American consumer.
  Last year it happened 2 out of 12 months that we grew dependent. This 
year, USDA tells us that we will break even at about 50-50. There will 
be no surplus agriculture trade. We will be importing as much as we are 
exporting, and that will be a historic first for our Nation.
  What it tells me, as someone who grew up in American agriculture, is 
that agriculture as an economy is becoming increasingly fragile. It no 
longer has the strength or the dynamics it once had. It grows 
increasingly dependent on the high cost of inputs--energy, equipment, 
other supplies necessary to produce the bounty of the American farm 
field. But one of those key inputs is labor--labor that is stable, 
labor that you know will be there, and, most importantly, labor that 
can get the job done at the right time,

[[Page S1289]]

when the crop in the field is ripe and ready to harvest.

  That labor pool is largely undocumented today. It is estimated that 
anywhere from 72 to 75 percent of those who work in American 
agriculture today are undocumented foreign nationals; in other words, 
illegal. And yet they toil in the fields, they pick our food, they help 
prepare it through the processing plants to get it to the consumer's 
shelf.
  If in our effort to protect our borders and to create a law 
enforcement community that can apprehend a person who has entered this 
country illegally, if all of that happens and we do not create a system 
that stabilizes and provides a legal foreign national workforce, we 
could literally collapse American agriculture.
  We are working at trying to protect our borders. We have invested 
heavily in it for the last good number of years. We just passed an 
intelligence reform bill in the latter part of the last session of the 
108th Congress dealing closely with our borders. Members on the House 
side are ready to introduce new forms of legislation to tighten up and 
allow the driver's license to become a more secure legal 
documentation--an American citizen versus one who would not be.
  I support nearly all of those things because they are the right thing 
to do for America to reclaim herself and to control her borders. But at 
the same time, there is a legitimate and responsible need to recognize 
the importance--the critical importance--of foreign nationals in our 
workforce helping to provide for our economy.
  In the late nineties, we were near 100-percent employment in our 
country. Anyone who wanted to work could work and was working. Those 
who were not probably either did not want to or could not. Yet during 
that time, we were still employing an estimated 8 million foreign 
nationals in our country. That is not a negative, that is the character 
of a great country. That is the character of a great economy and a 
strong economy.
  It is also that diversity that has produced the great American way, 
the idea of the American dream, the phenomenal hybrid vigor of a 
diverse character that is this country and has always been. And 
American agriculture has been a part of that. Those who toil in 
American agriculture have been a big part of that.
  What we do today by this legislation is reach out and attempt to 
recognize those who are here in an undocumented way and cause them to 
come forward to be recognized, to have a background check done, to make 
sure they are not law violators or felons who are here for some other 
purpose. If they have been here and worked a period of 100 days since 
January 1, 2005, we will provide for them a temporary green card and 
then allow them to work and earn the right for permanent work status in 
our country.
  To me, that seems fair and responsible. All of the parties involved 
in American agriculture today from the workforce to the producer 
themselves, they, too, agree that is a fair and responsible fashion. It 
is not giving anything away. It is attempting to correct a problem. It 
is doing the background checks. It is making sure we have a legal and 
legitimate workforce so that as we plug all of these holes and change 
the character of a broken immigration law, we do so without collapsing 
the very economy that feeds our country, recognizing that they became 
too dependent as agricultural producers on a workforce that was not 
legal.
  So we do not just wipe the workforce away. We attempt to identify it, 
shape it, and cause it to be legal and do so in a responsible fashion. 
That is clearly what our legislation does. That is why 63 Senators 
supported it last year, and well over 100 in the House were cosponsors 
of it. We are working hard at this very moment to pass this 
legislation, to get it to the President's desk, and recognize that it 
may be a template, it may be a pilot for others to look at for a more 
comprehensive approach toward immigration reform.
  There is no question in my mind that our immigration laws are broken, 
and I am not going to stand here tonight and suggest I have the wisdom 
to fix it all. But I and others and hundreds of organizations and 
interest groups from around this country have spent the last 5 years 
trying to solve this problem.
  When we started, many of us were 180 degrees apart. Slowly but surely 
we came together out of need, the clear recognition of the necessity of 
providing a legal, recognizable, and stable workforce for American 
agriculture.
  I do not think any citizen in our country would sleep well if they 
knew that a majority of our foodstuffs were imported, if they knew that 
we were dependent upon foreign nations and their producers for our food 
supply.
  I think they would grow frustrated over the risk that would be at 
hand there, the stability, the availability, the safety issue. Many 
have suggested that if we are going to have a terrorist attack again 
some day, one of the approaches terrorists might use would be to attack 
our food supply.
  If we control our workforce, if we produce it here, the possibility 
of that happening is considerably lessened. That goes right back to the 
old historic belief that a nation that can feed itself and its people 
is a nation that is inherently stable, and without question the produce 
of the American farm has allowed us to be that generation after 
generation, war after war.
  We are now at a very fine point and balance in our Nation's history 
where this year we will zero out that old historic belief of stability. 
We will be importing as much as we are exporting. So American 
agriculture deserves our attention.
  The people who labor there deserve our attention and respect. They 
deserve to be treated fairly as we would expect all people in our 
country to be, to have proper conditions and proper wages and to be 
recognized for the quality of work they do, instead of simply shoving 
them into the shadows in the back streets of America and denying they 
are there but knowing that we need them. That is an interesting 
contradiction in the current immigration laws in our country and 
America knows it and has reacted accordingly.
  It is why our President says immigration reform is critical and 
necessary and has proposed ways to accomplish it. It is why it is in 
the top list of issues and concerns that most Americans hold about what 
Government ought to be doing to create a safer, stronger America, from 
controlling our borders to an effective law enforcement system, to 
assuring that we know those who are within our borders and why they are 
here and what their intent is. That is all part of the agricultural 
jobs bill we introduce tonight, the Agricultural Job Opportunity 
Benefit and Security Act of 2005.
  I am proud that 40 Senators, nearly 50-50 in partisan split, have 
already endorsed this legislation. We will strive for that number of 
60-plus again. In doing so, I will ask my colleagues to help us bring 
this bill to the floor very early in this session, to debate it, to 
pass it out, to work with our House colleagues and to put it on the 
President's desk. I believe it is a positive and necessary start in 
marching down the road toward comprehensive immigration reform.
  To do anything less than we are proposing is once again to do the 
very thing we have done for well over a decade, and that is to turn our 
back on the problem and the issue, to know it is there but to deny it 
exists, and then to have a broken system produce the crisis that 
occurred on 9/11.
  We are a better country than that, and this Senate is a more 
responsible legislative body than that.
  So tonight I bring to my colleagues what I think is a major first 
step in immigration reform necessary and important to protecting our 
borders, to making sure we are secure at home, to stabilizing a food 
supply, to assuring that American agriculture has a predictable, stable 
workforce, and to say to all at hand that those who come here to toil, 
in the benefit of the American economy, will be treated in a fair, 
just, and responsible way.
  I yield the floor.
                                 ______