Senator Feinstein crafts emergency agriculture labor relief act

Mushroom News, June, 2008 by Laura Phelps

Facing a serious and worsening agriculture labor crisis in the United States, Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) is preparing an emergency solution for agriculture on a temporary basis that would address the immediate, critical needs for farm labor. Sen. Feinstein and others in Congress believe that agricultural producers and farm workers cannot wait for comprehensive immigration reform to be taken up in some future Congress. If a comprehensive approach is not a current option, she and her supporters say, then Congress must pass a temporary, emergency measure to ensure the viability of labor-intensive agriculture now.

Farm worker advocates and agricultural employers have long supported a comprehensive approach known as AgJOBS, which overhauls H-2A and addresses the workers that are here. AgJOBS has enjoyed bipartisan support for years, and its provisions passed the Senate in 2006.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

Sen. Feinstein's proposed Emergency Agriculture Labor Relief Act of 2008 (EARA) would include the provisions of the AgJOBS legislation dealing with reform of the H2A program and provide temporary limited immigration status for experienced farm workers who must continue to work in agriculture for five years after enactment. However, all provisions would sunset at the end of five years.

The proposal has own the support of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform (ACIR) and the American Farm Bureau, which wrote in a letter to Sen. Feinstein, "While the Emergency Agriculture Relief Act of 2008 falls short of the goals we all share for a permanent solution to the labor needs in agriculture, the American Farm Bureau Federation believes the measure is critically needed at this time and fully supports its consideration by Congress and enactment into law. Doing so will provide all interested parties the opportunity to work on a strong, comprehensive, bipartisan solution that will permanently address the structural labor deficit in the agricultural sector."

Congress is also grappling with enforcement-only approaches which many employers feel will only serve to aggravate not solve the problem. In the current enforcement-only environment, the farm workforce is extremely vulnerable to disruption, dislocation, and deportation. Farms are easy targets for high-profile raids at times of peak workload. Steady progress on border control, workplace raids, state laws targeting employers in a growing number of states, and the Department of Homeland Security reissued Social Security No-match rule, could combine to spell disaster for American agriculture unless Congress acts to ensure a stable labor supply.

For more specifics on the EARA legislation, contact the AMI Washington office at 202/842-4344 or ami@mwmlaw.com