Wool is very important to Wyoming. We produce a great deal of the American lamb and beef in this country. And we have in agriculture in Wyoming. just as we have in agriculture all over the United States. a great number of illegal undocumented persons who work in agriculture. Anyone who is not seeing that is missing the whole issue here. That is very simple. If you cannot save on interest. machinery. feed. or any other place. there is only one place you do save and that is with illegal undocumented workers. I recognize that. Everyone recognizes that. I think what we fall to recognize is that we are trying to pass a piece of legislation on immigration reform which has to do with the entire country. and it is immigration reform for the United States of America. It is not fcr the West. it is not for the East or the South or North. It is for the United States of America. I think there is the strangest figure you will come in immigration. I think people have a vision that everyone who is an illegal immigrant is someone who is working in agriculture with a hoe on the ground or weeding. working the beet fields or whatever. That is a great diversion from fact because only 8 to 15 percent of illegal undocumented persons work in agriculture. No one has ever given us any different figures on the select commission or in this body or in testimony. Only 8 to 15 percent of the illegal undocumented persons work in agriculture. The remainder of them work everywhere in the United States. assembly lines. service industries. you name it. Many of them for more than the minimum wage. indeed. as Senator WILSON says. and many more than the minimum wage In agriculture.
Identified stereotypes
The stereotype that all illegal immigrants work in agriculture.