[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 152 (2006), Part 16]
[Senate]
[Pages 21441-21442]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                              H-2A PROGRAM

  Mr. CHAMBLISS. Mr. President, I take a few minutes to respond to some 
of the comments made this afternoon by my colleagues from Idaho, from 
California, and Massachusetts. First of all, they are correct in 
stating the H-2A program, which is the existing temporary nonimmigrant 
worker program for agriculture, does not work the way it should.
  However, what Senator Craig, Senator Feinstein, Senator Boxer, and 
Senator Kennedy propose to do, rather than make many of the necessary 
changes to make the H-2A program viable nationwide is, first of all, to 
grant an amnesty to virtually everyone who has passed through 
agricultural occupations in the past 2 years.
  We all know that agriculture has been the traditional gateway 
occupation for illegal immigrants in the United States. I strongly 
disagree to large-scale adjustment of status for illegal aliens 
philosophically, particularly in the area of agriculture, but my 
objection has practical roots.
  Agricultural work is the hardest, most backbreaking work in the 
United States today. As soon as we give illegal aliens who are 
currently working in agriculture lawful, permanent resident status, as 
the AgJOBS bill will do, they will no longer choose to work in the 
fields, packing sheds, groves, or processing facilities.
  I come from the heart of agriculture country in the southeastern part 
of the United States. I have talked to farmers in my area not just for 
the 12 years I have been privileged to serve in Congress but even 
before that. Labor has been the most critical issue they have had to 
deal with year in and year out in addition to disasters, to too much 
rain, to not enough rain, to high gas prices.
  The immigration issue has the potential to be the answer if we do the 
right thing. We know these folks will leave agriculture and move into 
the private sector because this is what happened in 1986 after Congress 
passed the Immigration Reform and Control Act. Included in that 
legislation was the special agricultural worker program that gave 
temporary legal status to illegal aliens who had worked a certain 
number of years in agriculture. Two years after obtaining a temporary 
status--and in some cases 1 year--those illegal workers were given 
permanent status. They soon left the fields and moved into the private 
sector in so many other areas where we find them today.
  My position as chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee has 
provided me the opportunity to travel across the United States and talk 
with farmers and ranchers. Recently, I have concluded eight field 
hearings from one end of the country to the other, from the east coast 
to the west coast. In every single hearing we held with farmers and 
ranchers across America I had any number of farmers who came up to me 
during the process of those hearings to talk about immigration. It is 
an issue on the west coast. It is an issue on the east coast and all 
parts in between. And to a farmer, the one thing I heard from him was: 
Senator, whatever you do, don't let the AgJOBS provision that grants 
amnesty to folks who come to this country to work in agriculture get 
passed because if you let that provision in, I assure you, the pool of 
agricultural workers that we need will not be there after they gain 
that permanent status in the United States.
  Why should we expect this adjustment status to be any different than 
what we saw in 1986? It won't. I don't think it will be, and the folks 
who are involved in agriculture don't think it will be. All that would 
be left to our farmers and ranchers will be the H-2A program, and the 
revisions that Senators Craig, Feinstein, Boxer, and Kennedy make to 
the H-2A program are actually detrimental to the future success of that 
program.
  I have talked to farmers, as late as the day before yesterday. I had 
a group of farmers from all over the country who were in my office, and 
every single one of them uses the H-2A program. What they tell me is 
the program, as they have used it, is cumbersome. It is expensive. But 
it works. And in the areas of the country where farmers have used the 
H-2A program, the labor shortage issues are not as acute as in those 
areas apparently such as in California and Idaho, where they use 
illegals crossing the border, and where now the border is being 
tightened up and they are feeling a pinch because they do not use legal 
workers.
  In my part of the country, I went to our farmers who complained about 
not having a quality pool of workers from which to choose. And when 
they used illegal workers, and they had the INS come in and check on 
them, the illegals scattered from one end to the other, all of a 
sudden, and they were left naked and unable to harvest their crops. I 
said: What you have to do is get in compliance with the law. You

[[Page 21442]]

have to use H-2A, irrespective of how inconvenient it is, irrespective 
of how bureaucratic it is, and irrespective of how expensive it is, if 
you want to be legal and if you want to have that quality pool of 
workers from which to choose.
  By and large, farmers in my part of the world are now using H-2A, and 
they are finding that exactly what we thought would happen is 
happening. They do not have to look over their shoulder every year to 
see if ICE--now it is ICE--is coming in to check their workers. They 
know they are here legally. They know they are going to have to pay 
them a good wage. They know they are going to have to provide them with 
housing--all the things that H-2A provides. And they are willing to do 
that because they do have a quality pool from which to choose.
  Now, finally, I point out that even though H-2A is not perfect--it is 
cumbersome, it is costly, it subjects employees who use it to 
lawsuits--in those areas where H-2A is used, they are not experiencing 
the shortage that others have found. So I think, rather than grant a 
large adjustment of status to illegal workers, we ought to sit down at 
the table and talk about ways we can make the H-2A program more 
workable for our farmers.
  I am happy to sit down with my friends from California and Idaho and 
see if we cannot work through this. But let me say there are some 
fundamental problems with AgJOBS in addition to the adjustment of 
status provision, which does grant a pathway to becoming legal, a 
pathway to citizenship for those people who work in agriculture in this 
country under that program for a period of 2 years. We have to work 
through that. I do not think that is in the benefit of the American 
people, whether it is the American farmer or whether it is those people 
who are here legally trying to become citizens in the right way.
  Secondly, there is an issue relative to the wage rate. Now we have 
the adverse effect wage rate under the H-2A program, which is not fair. 
It is not equitable to farmers in North Dakota versus farmers in 
Georgia, versus farmers in California and Idaho. In the recent 
immigration reform package we had on the floor, we sought to amend that 
bill to include what is known as a prevailing wage, ``prevailing wage'' 
being a wage that is determined by the Department of Labor to be 
applicable to agricultural workers in certain regions within a State, 
rather than in regions of the country. It is fair. It is equitable. We 
need to have that prevailing wage provision put into whatever amendment 
we make to the H-2A program.
  Also, the AgJOBS bill does not eliminate what we call the 50-percent 
rule. Every farmer who uses H-2A knows and understands exactly what I 
am talking about and knows what a hindrance this is to them because, 
under AgJOBS, they would be forced to hire what is called a blue card 
worker who is treated like a U.S. worker for hiring purposes. If he 
shows up at the farm before 50 percent of the work is complete, then 
even though the farmer has an H-2A worker here, he has to send that 
individual back to wherever he came from and hire that domestic person 
or that blue card person under the AgJOBS program.
  It gets complicated, but those folks who have been involved in this 
know exactly what I am talking about. What we should make sure of is 
that at the end of the day we have a program that is fair to farmers, 
that is fair to Americans--whether they are folks who are here looking 
for work in agriculture or whether they are folks who are trying to 
become citizens of this country in a lawful way, in the way that is set 
forth in our Constitution--that we should make sure we provide our 
farmers with a quality pool of workers from which to choose, and that 
we make sure our farmers are required to pay those individuals a fair 
wage and are required to either provide them housing or provide them a 
housing allowance, so while they are here working on their farms we do 
not have to worry about where they are out in the communities, and that 
they are able to take care of themselves while they are here.
  All of these issues are critically important parts of any immigration 
reform package we take up. So I simply urge again my friends who want 
to give these folks who come to work in agriculture a pathway to 
citizenship that we sit down at the table and work out these 
differences. Let's amend H-2A and accomplish the goal we all have in 
common.
  Mr. President, I yield back.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Under the previous order, the Senator from 
North Dakota is recognized for 30 minutes.

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