Speech #980210528

Chairman. I rise only to state to my distinguished colleague from New York that we agree. for the concerns expressed by the gentleman are the concerns expressed by the Committee on Agricultuire. and the witnesses who testified before our committee. The question that the Committee on Agriculture was left with. was: Do you hire undocumented or do you have a legal process for the period that you need them? Thus the major concerns that the gentleman expressed are addressed to the SimpsonMazzoli bill. which is the wrong legislation at the wrong time for the wrong reasons. Under the Panetta amendment that will be offered. every effort is made to see first ascertain whether or not domestic workers. citizens or legal resident aliens. are available. And I say resident aliens because in my particular area of the country. many of the domestic workers are permanent resident aliens. legal immigrants who are not yet citizens. My congressional district is home base for a majority of the migrant agricultural workers in the United States. many of them are my friends and neighbors. and. no one more than I. wants to protect their interests and to see that every available job in the United States is there for them. all the way from Texas to California. to Delaware. to Oregon. to Washington. But the fact is that the present H2 program has not been working. Let me tell the gentleman that we checked with the Department of Labor and as far as we know. no H2 nonimmigrant visas have ever been granted in agriculture in south Texas. Now and then Immigration allows a musician. a mariachi band. or an artist. but no H2 visas in agriculture. I get upset when they point the finger at this legislation and label it as Hispanic. that somehow Mexico has contributed the most illegal or undocumented aliens in the U.S.A. Not so. I would like to inform my dear friend from New York that the majority of the undocumented are not in agriculture. they are in some other type of endeavor. For the benefit of those who claim that H2s take jobs away from domestic workers. let me give you some facts: In the year 1976. the total H2s were 29.778. and of these 761 were from Mexico and 9.325 from Jamaica. We selected Jamaica because of the proximity to the South and to the Northeast.