House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., speaks at a press conference today about the House Chamber’s first immigration bill being introduced this week. Colette Luke, Medill News Service
WASHINGTON – The U.S. House of Representatives will take its turn on immigration by introducing a bill this week – the first of many in the coming weeks – that includes a temporary agricultural guest worker program and an e-verification system for U.S employers to check employment eligibility of its workers.
Both elements were in a bipartisan immigration bill introduced last week in the Senate, which intends to move far more quickly than the House.
“Immigration reform is not an easy task, but a solution is not out of reach, “ House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., said at a press conference Thursday on Capitol Hill. “We must make sure we get immigration reform right this time.”Goodlatte said the House chamber has not decided yet if they will do a mark-up of individual bills or one large bill, but is planning to look at immigration reform in a piecemeal way and hold hearings on each of the individual bills.
But this House committee’s plan to roll out reform legislation incrementally is at odds with the all-encompassing tact taken by the Senate – and may compete with a House bipartisan group that will release its recommendations in coming weeks.
“It has got to be a comprehensive approach,” Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz,, said at a Christian Science Monitor breakfast earlier in the day.. There is “no way of getting this job done” without looking at everything together, he said. Goodlatte did not discuss the specifics of the bill, but said he and his colleagues are interested in what the Senate proposed.
Under the Senate’s bill, an agricultural worker program would phase out the H-2A visa and create a more stable agricultural workforce with critical worker protections. It also creates a “blue card” for undocumented workers who demonstrated that they have worked 100 days in agriculture two years prior to enactment and would be qualified to apply for permanent legal residency.
Currently, H-2A visa holders can only stay in the U.S. for three years and then they must return to their native homeland and reapply.
More than 60 percent of farm workers are undocumented immigrants, according to the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives.
Bruce Fraiser is owner of Dixondale Farms in southern Texas, one of the oldest onion farms in the country. Though none of his workers are undocumented or are on a H-2A visa, he said the majority of his workers are of Hispanic descent or come directly from Mexico to work for him legally. He said there is a labor shortage in the U.S. and a better immigration system needs to be created.
“I’ve seen a decline in the U.S. workers willing to do the work, “ Fraiser said. He said the main reason is a generational gap – the young kids don’t want to do the work. Just 10 percent of his workforce is under the age of 40.
Fraiser said that if undocumented workers in the guest-worker programs are able to get permanent residency, they too might look for better jobs.