[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 125 (Friday, September 29, 2006)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10517-S10518]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 AgJOBS

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I will be brief because I have already 
spoken on the issue with Senator Feinstein of California earlier before 
the noon hour. I did want to come back and conclude my concerns.
  My original cosponsor, Senator Kennedy, is in the Chamber. He and I 
worked collectively on the issue of a guest worker program for this 
country that would create a legality, a transparency, and a 
reasonableness to the management of it in a reformed H-2A worker 
program that he and I worked on and shaped and which became known as 
AgJOBS, along with how we dealt with the issue of those in the country 
today who are illegal and who remain a critical part of the American 
workforce, and especially with agriculture, an industry that has become 
increasingly dependent upon migrant workers, guest workers and, in this 
instance, tragically enough, illegal workers. Let me cite a couple of 
examples because I, like Senator Feinstein and others, Senator Boxer; 
the State of California, the State of Idaho, the State of Oregon, the 
State of Washington; in fact, the State of the Nation where agriculture 
exists today--the Presiding Officer, Senator Martinez, has just gone 
through a situation in the State of Florida where literally millions 
and millions of dollars' worth of oranges have rotted simply because 
they couldn't find the hands to pick them to put them through the 
process of packing and distribution.

  America's agriculture is dependent on hand labor. When we think of 
agriculture in the Midwest, we think of large machines doing all the 
work. It is simply not true. In the fruits and vegetables and nuts 
areas and many of the varieties of fruits we find abundant upon the 
supermarket shelves of America, we are dependent on hand labor, and 
that hand labor over the last many decades has become predominantly 
foreign labor and, tragically enough, it has become illegal foreign 
labor. But because of a failure of government--and it is important I 
say this: It is not American agriculture's fault. It is a failure of 
government to appropriately and necessarily police our borders and 
devise and cause to work a reasonable, flexible, transparent guest 
worker program that brings us to the crisis American agriculture is 
beginning to experience as we speak.
  The Senator from California spoke earlier of the literally billions 
of dollars' worth of crops that are going to be left in the fields of 
the greater San Joaquin Valley of California this year because there is 
no one to pick them.
  I am always frustrated when it happens in my State that some of my 
citizens say: Larry, we have all these people on welfare. Get them out 
and get them to work. Well, we reformed the welfare program 
dramatically, and literally millions of people who were once on welfare 
are working. We are at full employment in our country today. That means 
those who can and will are working. In my State of Idaho, we are almost 
beyond full employment. Finally, finally, after fairly heavy criticism 
for what I was doing to lead an area of immigration reform that was 
critical to my State, and much of that criticism came from my State, 
now Idaho agriculture is beginning to step up and say: My goodness, 
where are these workers we have grown to depend on?
  We believe we are 18 to 20 percent underemployed in the State of 
Idaho. That means our packing sheds this fall and some of our produce, 
our fruits, and our vegetables have not and will not get harvested. Our 
potato industry is beginning to feel the impact of fewer people there 
to help them, and as a result their timely harvest and their timely 
packing simply will not occur.
  So whether it is Idaho or California or Florida or anywhere else in 
the Nation, American agriculture exists. Whether it is with the nursery 
industry or the landscaping industry, they too are now experiencing the 
great difficulty of this country doing what it should have done a long 
time ago; that is, control its borders.
  The shortages today are a result of our southern border beginning to 
close. We have made a commitment to the American people that we will 
secure that border. Part of the debate which will occur this afternoon 
when we get back on the fence bill will be that kind of debate: how we 
can further secure our borders. But if you only secure your borders and 
you do not create a legal and transparent program by which foreign 
nationals can enter our country to enter our workforce legally, then we 
will create an economic schism in this country that is, without 
question, real. It is showing up in agriculture today because 
agriculture has historically been a threshold economy

[[Page S10518]]

for a foreign worker. They come here, they work in agriculture for a 
couple years, they move out, and they move on to the service industry, 
the construction industry, the homebuilding industry.
  In part, with our borders now tightening and the nearly $2 billion a 
year we are spending on that security and that increasing security, 
they have moved out of agriculture and there is no one to move in. 
Also, the displacement occurred after Katrina when many of that level 
of worker left the fields of agriculture and went south into 
Mississippi and Louisiana to help with the cleanup down there. In fact, 
many Mississippians and Louisianans will tell you that if it hadn't 
been for migrant workers and, in this instance, illegal workers, we 
wouldn't be as far along with the cleanup and the beginning of the 
rehabilitation of what has gone on in the tragic area affected by 
Katrina.
  Mr. President, when we proceed to the fence bill, I am going to 
attempt to bring up AgJOBS. I am going to ask unanimous consent that 
the Senate allow us to do that. I don't know that it will happen. It 
probably won't. But I think it is important for America and agriculture 
to see we are trying. Because one of the quotes I handed in earlier 
when I asked unanimous consent for some material to go into the Record, 
along with the letter Senator Feinstein and I sent out to our 
colleagues, was, I thought, a necessary and appropriate headline from 
an article that talks about the impact of what is going on across 
agricultural America. It says: ``Pickers are Few, and Growers Blame 
Congress.'' And the growers ought to blame Congress. They ought to 
blame a government that has been dysfunctional in the area of 
immigration for decades.

  That is why I began to work on this issue back in 1999 when American 
agriculture came to me and said: Senator, we have a problem, and we 
know it is a problem. We don't like it. We want to be legal. We want 
our workers to be legal, and we want to treat them justly. But the 
workers, by their effort to get here, are being treated unjustly. We 
know they are not legal, and yet we are nearly wholly dependent upon 
them.
  I had hopes that we could keep the cart and the horse connected 
appropriately. There is now a very real disconnect occurring--a 
disconnect between the security of the border, which is critical and 
necessary, and a legal process by which those workers can move through 
that secured border to the farms and fields of American agriculture. I 
don't know what it is going to end up like at the end of the harvest 
season across America, but my guess is--and it is now being predicted--
we could lose $4 billion or $5 billion or $6 billion at the farm gate, 
and of course there is the multiplier then beyond the farm gate to the 
processing, to the distribution, and to the supermarket. We all know 
what happens when it gets to the supermarket and there is less of it: 
the American consumer is going to pay double the price for that produce 
that simply was left in the fields to rot.
  Now, that is what is going on now. When we get back in November, we 
will have accurate figures--this Congress isn't going to deal with it--
and we will know whether it was $3 billion or $4 billion or $5 billion 
or $6 billion, and shame on us, because the Senator from California is 
right. We could deal with it today. The bill has been well heard. The 
bill has been appropriately vetted. It has been around a long time. It 
has been accepted by 60 Members of this body. But we are now 
politically bound up until after the American people speak in the 
election, and then we will find out how much further we can move on 
this issue.
  So we will know in November about the harvest of September and 
October. What about the winter months? What about the farmer who is now 
going to go out into the field in January to plant for a February or 
March fresh vegetable crop across Florida, parts of the South, 
certainly Arizona, the Imperial Valley of California, where last year 
we left over $1 billion of fresh green vegetables in the field? I will 
tell my colleagues what the farmers are telling me, and it is a tragedy 
if it happens, but it probably is going to happen. Senator, they say, 
if we can't plant that fresh vegetable crop that requires hand labor, 
we will plant winter grain. We will simply go to the fields and plant a 
crop of phenomenally less value to the American agricultural market, in 
the intensive sense, because we know it isn't going to require hand 
labor. One farmer told me: If I can't have the labor come to me, I will 
go where the labor is. So he is moving his operations out of 
California. He is headed to Brazil. He is headed to Argentina. There 
goes that economy, there go those jobs, because this Congress could not 
understand and function in an appropriate fashion.
  So be it. That is the tragedy of it. I had hoped we could think 
differently. We need a legal workforce. We need a reformed H-2A 
program. We need a guest worker program. We worked out those 
differences amongst ourselves. Some have agreed, some have not agreed, 
but we have attempted to resolve the problem.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator's time has expired.
  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, in closing, I am going to give the Senate 
one more opportunity to say no because it is important that the Record 
show where we are because history and this month will dictate where we 
need to go in November.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Massachusetts is recognized.

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