[Congressional Record Volume 153, Number 6 (Thursday, January 11, 2007)]
[Senate]
[Pages S441-S442]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                                 AGJOBS

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, the last Congress worked long and hard to 
resolve one of the most contentious issues of our time: immigration. As 
many of our colleagues know, while a number of border enforcement 
measures were enacted, we did not complete all the critical elements of 
a comprehensive strategy on immigration reform.
  Yesterday, I joined with Senators Feinstein, Kennedy, Martinez, 
Voinovich, and Boxer in reintroducing legislation to address a very 
important piece of that unfinished business: the establishment of a 
workable, secure, effective temporary worker program to match willing 
foreign workers with jobs that Americans are unwilling or unable to 
perform.
  Our legislation is specific to U.S. agriculture because this economic 
sector, more than any other, has become dependent for its existence on 
the labor of immigrants who are here without legal documentation. The 
only program currently in place to respond to a lack of legal domestic 
agricultural workers, the H-2A guest worker program, is profoundly 
broken. Outside of H-2A, farm employers have no effective, reliable 
assurance that their employees are legal.
  The bill we reintroduced is called AgJOBS--the Agricultural Job 
Opportunity, Benefits, and Security Act. This bill was part of the 
comprehensive immigration legislation passed last year by the Senate. 
Today's version incorporates a few language changes that update, but do 
not substantively amend, that measure.
  We are reintroducing AgJOBS to fix the serious flaws that plague our 
country's current agricultural labor system. Agriculture has unique 
workforce needs because of the special nature of its products and 
production, and our bill addresses those needs.
  Our bill offers a thoughtful, thorough, two-step solution. On a one-
time basis, experienced, trusted workers with a significant work 
history in American agriculture would be allowed to stay here legally 
and earn adjustment to legal status. For workers and growers using the 
H-2A legal guest worker program, that program would be overhauled and 
made more streamlined, practical, and secure.
  This legislation has been tested and examined for years in the Senate 
and House of Representatives, and it remains the best alternative for 
resolving urgent problems in our agriculture that require immediate 
attention. That is why AgJOBS has been endorsed by a historic, broad-
based coalition of more than 400 national, State, and local 
organizations, including farmworkers, growers, the general business 
community, Latino and immigration issue groups, taxpayer groups, other 
public interest organizations, State directors of agriculture, and 
religious groups.
  We all want and need a stable, predictable, legal workforce in 
American agriculture. Willing American workers deserve a system that 
puts them first in line for available jobs with fair market wages. All 
workers should receive

[[Page S442]]

decent treatment and protection of fundamental legal rights. Consumers 
deserve a safe, stable, domestic food supply. American citizens and 
taxpayers deserve secure borders and a government that works.
  AgJOBS would serve all these goals.
  Last year, we saw millions of dollars' worth of produce rot in the 
fields for lack of workers. We are beginning to hear talk of farms 
moving out of the country, moving to the foreign workforce. All 
Americans face the danger of losing more and more of our safe, domestic 
food supply to imports.
  Time is running out for American agriculture, farmworkers, and 
consumers. What was a problem years ago is a crisis today and will be a 
catastrophe if we do not act immediately. I urge my colleagues to 
demonstrate their support for U.S. agriculture by cosponsoring the 
Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits, and Security Act--AgJOBS 2007--
and by helping us pass this critical legislation as soon as possible.

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