Chairman. I rise in reluctant opposition to the amendment of my good friend from California to create a new guest worker program. At a time when our focus is on reducing immigration levels. the Pombo amendment attempts to allow an additional 250.000 nonskilled temporary workers to help the agricultural industry because they feel there will not be a sufficient work force once this legislation becomes law. We know that there is currently a surplus of agricultural workers in this country. We know that half of the illegal aliens currently working in this country remain here past their visa time. We know that the work force has helped to drive down the wages to agricultural workers to the point where most lowskilled U.S. citizens simply cannot afford to take these Jobs. Knowing this. do we fix these problems by creating another program out of fear of what could happen? Or do we reform our current H2A program to create a compromise solution while continuing to address a problem that actually has happened? The problem is that our immigration system is broken. Our agricultural workers wages are down because the system is broken. The last thing we should do now is bring in more temporary agricultural workers who will not want to leave.
Keywords matched
visa illegal aliens H2A immigration