It’s called the Legal Workforce Act, and local farm worker and agribusiness groups contend that if it ever becomes law, it would negatively impact thousands of undocumented workers and employers in Santa Barbara County.
Introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives in June by House Judiciary Committee Chairman Lamar Smith (R-Texas), the legislation mandates that all employers use the computerized E-Verify system to check the citizenship status of new hires to ensure they’re authorized to work in the United States.
The bill does make some concessions for employers in the agricultural industry, who would have three years to implement the program. Currently, ag employers rely on a verification process using paper documents, which critics say can be easily forged.
On Sept. 22, the Judiciary Committee approved the bill by a vote of 22-13. It will next head to the Education and Workforce and Ways and Means committees before consideration by the full House.
The bill is co-sponsored by Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Thousand Oaks), who chairs the House Immigration Subcommittee. Gallegly was unavailable to answer questions from the Sun directly, but did issue a statement, via his spokesman Tom Pheifer, addressing the bill’s potential impact on the local ag workforce.
“Unlike other industries, agriculture employs workers whose skills are not readily available in the United States,” Gallegly said in an e-mail. “The Legal Workforce Act exempts agriculture from the E-Verify requirements for three years to give Congress time to create a viable guest worker program. I am working with Chairman Smith and Rep. [Dan] Lungren [R-Sacramento] to find a solution that allows agriculture to have a legal workforce and that protects American taxpayers from shouldering the costs of guest workers.”
Gallegly has said the bill would free up about seven million jobs for Americans within the next two years. However, Santa Barbara County Ag Commissioner Cathy Fisher said the potential repercussions are of great concern to the county’s top economic contributor, which is already dealing with a labor shortage.
“When you have a county that’s relying on an agricultural industry like here in Santa Barbara, something like an impact to their labor source happens, you know it’s going to have a rippling effect,” Fisher said. “It’s not just the industry here relying on a labor force, but a labor force that’s skilled. … You just can’t send anybody to do this kind of work, because it’s hard work.”
According to estimates from the U.S. Department of Agriculture, up to 70 percent of all the industry’s workers nationwide are undocumented. The United Farm Workers of America, the nation’s largest advocate for migrant workers, voiced their displeasure with the bill at a demonstration at Gallegly’s Camarillo office on Sept. 30. Other local organizations have also stepped up in opposition.
Richard Quandt, president of the Grower-Shipper Vegetable Association of San Luis Obispo and Santa Barbara counties, said he’s “very much concerned” with the impact mandatory E-Verify would have on the Santa Maria Valley, which depends on labor-intensive crops such as strawberries and vegetables.
“If this passes, we would lose our workforce and it would devastate agriculture here,” Quandt said. “Yes, we do need to find a way to legalize our workforce and Congress needs to enact immigration reform, but it needs to be comprehensive in its scope and it needs to address all the pieces of the puzzle, so that at the end, all the pieces fit and you have an effective policy that works.”
Quandt estimated that up to 10,000 undocumented farmworkers would be rendered ineligible for work in Santa Barbara County alone. He cautioned that without a way for employers to access workers from other countries, the United States would be forced to import produce, jeopardizing the county’s strong agricultural base.
Quandt added he’s supportive of a guest worker program, so harvesting can continue unabated and workers have time to legalize their status.
“We don’t think the public is against that,” Quandt said. “Our experience has been that most native-born Americans don’t want to work out in the fields. It’s difficult work, it’s repetitive for a number of reasons, but mostly because the working conditions are very difficult and very strenuous. Most people aspire to other types of jobs that are frankly easier.”
PUEBLO Executive Director Mark Alvarado said he too supports a guest worker program, similar to the “bracero” program that operated in the United States from the 1940s to 1960s. However, he said, any such program must include a gateway toward citizenship for people with work histories in order to be successful.
“You can’t attract people to come over here to work and then they establish family and residency and then we say, ‘You know what? Your term is up; it’s time for you to go back,’” Alvarado said. “That’s not a practical thing, for human beings to have to be like a yo-yo going back and forth.”
Without more comprehensive immigration reform, Alvarado said, the Legal Workforce Act in and of itself would have a “huge negative impact” on the Latino population of the Central Coast, causing more harm than good in the long run.
“It really creates a gray area for the community, because what you’re doing is pulling the rug out from under the workforce that supports this large economic driver,” Alvarado said. “It’s going to hurt families. It’s going to hurt kids. That’s who’s going to be most impacted by this.”
Staff Writer Jeremy Thomas can be contacted at jthomas@santamariasun.com.
This article appears in Oct 6-13, 2011.
