Farmers Call Crackdown on Illegal Workers Unfair

[kskiska]

Source: NYT

Facing the prospect of major layoffs of farmworkers during harvest season, growers and lawmakers from agricultural states spoke in dire terms yesterday about new measures by the Bush administration to crack down on employers of illegal immigrants.

“This is not just painful, this is death to the American farmer,” Maureen Torrey, who runs a family dairy and vegetable farm in Elba, N. Y., said in a telephone interview.

“We’ve tried everything we can do,” Ms. Torrey said. “But they are leaving us with no options.”

At a news conference in Washington yesterday, Michael Chertoff, the secretary of homeland security, and Carlos M. Gutierrez, the secretary of commerce, formally unveiled the measures, which had been disclosed in general terms earlier, to reinforce border security and drive illegal immigrants out of the labor force.

The new effort was cautiously welcomed yesterday by conservative Republicans who defied President Bush in June and opposed a broad immigration bill he supported that failed in the Senate. That bill included provisions to give legal status to illegal immigrants and to create a guest worker program for agriculture.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/11/us/11immig.html?_r=1&ref=washington&oref=slogin

[rodeodance]

1. There have been several articles in a short time about this situation.

[rodeodance]

2. higher dairy/food prices will affect those who can least afford to pay :

Farmers were less shy, saying at least 70 percent of farmworkers are illegal immigrants.

Ms. Torrey, the New York farmer, and other growers expressed their distress to White House and Homeland Security Department officials during a conference call with the National Council of Agricultural Employers, arranged by the administration to explain the new plan. Ms. Torrey warned that dairy cows would die from lack of milking if New York farmers had to fire immigrant dairy workers.

Luawanna Hallstrom, a tomato grower in Oceanside, Calif., who also participated in the conference call, called the measures “a train wreck.”

At the Washington news conference, Mr. Gutierrez said part of the new plan was to streamline the existing agricultural guest worker program, which he acknowledged was “not workable.” But growers said only 2 percent of farmworkers nationwide came from that program.

[proud2bamerican2]

6. Suggestion to Ms. Torrey

My suggestion to Ms. Torrey would be to pay a fair, living wage for the work she requires, and chances are, she'll find people willing to do it. What she really means though is, "If I have to fire illegal immigrant workers, who's gonna milk them cows for $5 an hour?!"

[Viva_La_Revolution]

3. If a picker made $10 per hour, a pint of strawberries will cost 10cents more.

I can deal with that.

I could also be persuaded to earn a few extra bucks on the weekend for picking crops for $10 hour.

this could be a win-win...

[onewholaughsatfools]

4. Did anyone see the movie?

A day without Mexicans, I think it makes a very valid point..........America needs mexicans so stand up and support them.....blessings

[Trillo]

5. I live in an agricultural area.

(Avocados) I have never seen a "picking" job advertised at any rate of pay. It seems that those who are pickers have their own networks of job information.

[libodem]

7. let's sink the farmers

No one in America likes to eat.:mad: :grr: :nuke: :thumbsdown: :cry: :banghead:

[Demit]

8. Note the other businesses employing possibly illegal immigrants—

"Randel K. Johnson, a vice president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, said the measures were “one more kick in the pants” for meat-packing, construction and health care companies that employ immigrant workers in unskilled jobs."

Are we to feel sorry for them too? Healthcare companies??

Businesses alway cry foul when they are faced with the possibility that they might have to pay their workers more. They always claim that prices will have to increase. They always slide right by the possible option of maybe they could reduce their profit margin.

And businesses—including the business press—always go right to the farmers as an example of dire straits. Because they know we picture Grandpa McCoy when they mention farmers, not the huge agribusiness operations that are run like any big corporation.

[sendero]

9. Why go after farm workers?

Those are the immigrants we NEED. Count on George two left feet Bush to, when he finally decides to do the right thing, to do it all wrong.

[0007]

10. Doesn't the government own most of the major farms today? nt

Didn't the big boys squeeze the little farmer out years ago?

[DBoon]

11. And how much did these farmers spend breaking unions

over the last 40 years?

Read "Factories in the Field" to see some history about how farm labor has been treated in this country.


I find it very hard to sympathize with a group of employers who have done everything possible to reduce their workforce to serfs.

[Jim Warren]

12. True dat

Notice how the news stories will trot out a small family farmer for comments, sure thats representative since the family farmer now represents a whopping 0.5% of total farm production.

Hmmm, where was the news coverage when those same family farms were going under over the last fifty years?

Can you say ADM?

[mitchum]

13. Cry me a fucking river, Old MacDonald