Senators disagree on fixing US farm worker shortage.

Sens. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) and Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) agree that the shortage of farm workers in the United States is approaching crisis levels. But they differ on how to address the problem as it relates to recent immigrants.

“Our immigration system is failing; it’s failing them as well as our farmers and the American people,” said Durbin, who chairs the committee.

Witnesses at a May 31 hearing of the Senate Judiciary Committee said current immigration law leaves immigrants open to exploitation and abuse by human traffickers and unethical employers.

The Need for Agricultural Labor Reform

Durbin agreed with witnesses who said most farm workers are illegal immigrants whose human rights must be protected by ensuring that agricultural labor reform includes the possibility of citizenship.

Graham said implementing reforms without securing the border would only make a bad situation even worse.

The H2A Temporary Visa Program

The witnesses said the problem begins with the inability to find citizens and legal residents willing to do the difficult and often dangerous farm work. Many farmers turn to the H2A temporary visa program, which presents its own problems.

• H2A requires that farmers try to hire U.S. citizens or legal residents first.
• The Department of Labor set the farm worker base wage at $16 per hour.
• Farmers are also required to provide housing and transportation.

Leon Sequeira, former Assistant Secretary of Labor in the George W. Bush administration, is an attorney for agricultural employers. He said the Department of Labor administers the H2A Visa program and is often hostile or indifferent to farmers. This puts the farmers in a tough spot.

“Farmers have no other legal option,” he told the committee.

Sequeira said that in the past year, 300 legal residents applied for the roughly 500,000 open farm jobs. This is an average of about six applicants for every 10,000 jobs. However, H2A presents challenges as well.

“Farmers do not get to set the price for their products.” he said. “The market sets the price.”

Sequeira said farmers compete in an international market. While American farmers pay workers $16 per hour, Mexican farmers pay about $11 daily.

A National Security Issue

Chalmers Carr, a South Carolina farmer, testified that this makes the issue more than just a market or immigration problem.

“We have a very fragile food supply chain. I would say we are adversely affecting the consumer with higher food prices,” Carr said.

He added that citizenship wasn’t necessarily the best incentive. Carr said that in his experience, many of the illegal aliens came to the United States for financial benefits.

“If we created a better guest worker program, we could solve this problem,” he said.

Humanitarian Considerations

Other witnesses said there are humanitarian considerations as well.

Diana Tellefson Torres is CEO of the United Farm Workers Foundation. She said many illegal alien farmworkers make much less than the $16 per hour set by the government. She said human smugglers and unethical employers force illegal workers to pay them various fees. Because of this, many illegals enter the c