FEINSTEIN TO FILE ‘EMERGENCY’ GUEST WORKER BILL
Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.), one of the major supporters of the AgJOBS bill in the Senate, is prepared to introduce a measure to help agriculture have access to a legal workforce. The following is a summary of the bill:
Earned adjustment of status (emergency agricultural worker status):
• Provides temporary limited immigration status for experienced farmworkers who must continue to work in agriculture for five years after enactment.
• Workers cannot obtain legal permanent resident status (green cards).
• Program is capped at 1.35 million workers.
• Eligibility is limited to those who can prove agricultural employment for at least 150 days or 863 hours or who have earned at least $7,000 working in U.S. agriculture during the 48 months before Dec. 31, 2007.
• Emergency workers must work at least 100 days per year in agriculture for each of the next five years.
• Workers must pay a $250 fine plus processing fees.
• Workers would not be entitled to Social Security benefits based on employment prior to legal status.
• If Congress does not enact AgJOBS or comprehensive reform in the next five years, the workers would have to leave the country or return to illegal status.
H-2A Program Reform
All provisions are identical to AgJOBS except:
• The adverse effect wage rate would be frozen at the level in effect on Jan. 1, 2008, (2007 AEWR) until March 1, 2012. If Congress fails to act to make the reforms of AgJOBS permanent, after March 1, 2012, the formula for calculating the AEWR would revert to the current formula (AEWR is the average of all field and livestock worker wages in a state or multistate region).
• The measure includes the special provisions of AgJOBS that extend to the dairy industry and special provisions that currently apply to the sheep industry.
• If Congress does not enact AgJOBS or comparable reforms in the next five years, the H-2A reforms would sunset and the current H-2A program would be reinstated.
“While this bill has a long way to go before becoming law, its passage will greatly assist growers in obtaining a legal work force,” said Walter Kates, FFVA’s director of Labor Relations.
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