Farm groups prepare to jump into Senate immigration fray

Surprised by the House's passage in December of a border security bill that would make it a crime to hire illegal aliens, a coalition of agriculture producers dependent on migrant labor is gearing up for a floor fight when the Senate takes up border security and immigration bills this week.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., is trying to finish marking up a comprehensive bill Monday, but the Senate faces a cloture vote Tuesday on the border enforcement bill that Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., introduced before the St. Patrick's Day recess.

Frist's bill also would require employers to verify the legal status of workers and impose fines and jail terms on those who do not, but Frist has pledged to add the Judiciary Committee's work on so-called guestworkers and other issues if it can produce a bill.

Craig Regelbrugge, senior government relations director of the American Nursery & Landscape Association and a co-chairman of the American Coalition for Immigration Reform, said in an interview that the coalition's 150 members hoped that the Judiciary Committee would succeed in adding provisions to deal with guestworkers and illegal aliens who have been living in the United States for years.

Regelbrugge said if it was not successful in adding the provisions, the coalition would be prepared for a floor battle. For the Senate to follow in the House's footsteps and pass an enforcement-only bill "would be absolute reckless endangerment of our economy," Regelbrugge said.

Agriculture groups have been lobbying for several years for an immigration bill that would legalize the estimated 70 percent of the 1.6 million farm workers who are illegal aliens and to improve the system for immigrant laborers to enter the country legally. But the House passed, 238-182, a border security measure sponsored by House Judiciary Chairman James Sensenbrenner, R-Wis.

"The whole context changed," Regelbrugge said. "There are plenty of people in agriculture who believed incorrectly that neither house of Congress would pass an enforcement-only bill. The Sensenbrenner bill was a wake-up call for anybody with complacency."

More than 300 farmers came to Washington last week to tell Congress what would happen if borders were secured without making provision for farm workers. Luawanna Hallstrom, a California vegetable producer who farms near Camp Pendleton, said that when the government began checking nearby farm workers for their legal status after Sept. 11, 2001, her firm could not get workers and lost $2.5 million in 45 days.

Tom Nassif, president of Western Growers, a trade association that represents the growers of 75 percent of the fruits and vegetables raised in California and Arizona, warned that U.S. fruit and vegetable growers were already buying farms in Mexico and other countries and sending produce back to the United States.

Nassif also said the fruit and vegetable industry was mechanizing wherever it can, but that fresh fruit and vegetables required hand picking. Arguments that agriculture could attract U.S. workers if wages were higher are not true, he said. He said that even though farm workers were paid $9.50 per hour while food handlers got $6.54, farmers still have a harder time getting field laborers.

"Americans don't raise their children to be farm workers," he said.