'Ag Jobs' bill offers path to legal status

WASHINGTON — The immigration reform package negotiated by Sen. Charles E. Schumer and other Senate leaders gives undocumented immigrants working on farms a chance to gain legal status — a provision long sought by farm groups but which remains politically dicey with public opinion strongly against illegal immigration.

The immigration measure announced last week includes an "Ag Jobs" bill that has languished in Congress for a few years but which Mr. Schumer, D-N.Y., and other supporters are counting on to secure votes from farm states.

In addition to protecting people already working on farms, the bill provides a new program to bring temporary farm workers into the country and expands dairy farmers' ability to hire immigrant workers to year-round positions on a temporary basis. Under current law, dairy farms do not qualify for a federal guest worker program, although Hispanic immigrants have become a big part of the work force on dairy farms in Northern New York and other areas. The measure would apply the H-2A guest worker program to dairy and sheep farms for the first time.

To gain legal status, undocumented workers would have to work in the United States for at least a year and pay a $400 fine, as well as show payment of federal income taxes.

Mr. Schumer, chairman of a Senate immigration subcommittee, has emerged as a player in the immigration reform debate in recent months, working with Republicans including Sen. Lindsay Graham of South Carolina. A spokesman for the Northeast Council of Dairy Farmer Cooperatives, Robert Gray, said Mr. Schumer has sided consistently with dairy farmers on immigration, supporting the Ag Jobs bill introduced by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.

Mr. Schumer has called the measure a "fix the border first" bill, reflecting lawmakers' call to improve border security by increasing penalties against illegal crossers and directing more funds to border control agencies.

Whether the issue gains much ground remains to be seen. Supporters acknowledge that public sentiment is strong against illegal immigration, but voters also blame Washington generally for inaction on the issue — a stalemate that contributed to Arizona's passage of a strict anti-illegal immigrant law that will likely face legal challenges.

On the other hand, they are counting on the public's willingness to see farm workers as different from factory workers or others, and to be open to the idea of giving farm workers a route to legal status.

Farm groups such as the National Milk Producers Federation and New York Farm Bureau have pushed hard for provisions that would prevent the loss of workers on dairy farms.

Last year, the NMPF and Texas A&M University surveyed about 2,000 dairy farms and found that U.S. dairies employed 138,000 full-time equivalent workers, of which 57,000, or 41 percent, were foreigners.

In addition, New York's apple orchards rely heavily on migrant workers, and Farm Bureau has said the harvest would be disrupted severely if those workers were lost.