Speech #1050171203

Dont we ever learn? Have the special interests no shame. A new bracero program would be harmful to American farmworkers. harmful to efforts to control illegal immigration. and harmful to the nation. If the Senate votes for this amendment. it is voting for another "harvest of shame." It is voting to let thousands of poor foreign farmworkers come here and stay permanently. This amendment opens the floodgates to foreign workers. It gives them permanent green cards if they work here for four consecutive harvests. This amendment turns its back on years of efforts to improve conditions for Americas farmworkers we admit under the current immigration laws. A vast new guest worker program is completely unnecessary. As the General Accounting Office said in December: "Ample supplies of farm labor appear to be available in most areas." I refer our colleagues to page 6 of the December publication of the GAO. It says: GAOs own analysis suggests. and many farm labor experts. government officials. and grower and farm labor advocates agree. that a widespread farm labor shortage has not occurred in recent years and does not now appear to exist... It found that 13 counties maintained annual doubledigit unemployment rates. and 19 percent had rates above the national average. The late Barbara Jordan and her Commission on Immigration Reform unanimouslyunanimouslyconcluded that creating such a program would be a "grievous mistake". Every Federal immigration commission in modern times has concluded that agricultural guestworker programs should not be expanded. The Commission on Immigration Reform. the .Commission on Agricultural Workers in 1992. and the Hesburgh Commission in 1981 all reached that conclusion. The socalled protections in this amendment can be easily circumvented. The Department of Labor does not even have. the authority to limit the issuance of visas if it finds that the employment of foreign labor is hurting U.S. workers. This bill strips all of the protections in the current program. First. this amendment weakens the requirements to hire American farmworkers first.