Speech #1050171204

This study shows that despite the extraordinary prosperity we have seen in the United States. the farmworkers are on the lowest rungworking the hardestthe lowest rung of the economic ladder and have moved backward in terms of their real purchasing power. They already suffer doubledigit unemployment. and this amendment will make that crisis worse. It eliminates the requirement in current immigration law that foreign workers must be paid a wage that will not depress wages for American farmworkers. Even if an American worker shows up early in a harvest. he will not be guaranteed the job if an employer has foreign workers. In fact. that is the way most American migrant farmworkers get their jobsby just showing up. For yearsfor decadesthey have travelled farm to farm at harvest time. They show up for the job. harvest after harvest. Under current law. if an American worker shows up in the first half of a harvest. he gets the job. even if a foreign worker is already there. This is called the "50 percent rule." Under this amendment. if that American worker is not on the new computer "registry." he cannot get the job. I am also concerned that this amendment will encourage illegal immigration. After spending billions of dollars to strengthen the Border Patrol to keep illegal immigrants out. it makes no sense to instruct the INS to cut a gaping hole in the border fence. and look the other way as illegal immigrants pour through. We know from the hard lesson of past experiences that foreign agricultural worker programs create patterns of illegal immigration that cant be stopped. The first workers to come here may be legal. have temporary work visasbut they create an endless chain of illegal immigration. as relatives. neighbors. and friends follow them into America. In fact. under this amendment. if you work in this program for four years. you get a green card and can stay in America forever. An unlimited number of workers can enter under this reckless program. There is no cap. Hundreds of thousands of workers can come in. work four years. get green cards. and stay forever. As Philip Martin. a leading agricultural labor economist at the University of California at Davis. has stated. when it comes to temporary foreign worker programs. "There is nothing more permanent than a temporary worker." The original bracero program did not really end in 1964. It established a permanent. welltraveled path of illegal immigration. And three and a half decades later. we are still paying a price. A comprehensive joint study by the United States and Mexico. completed last year. put it this way: History has shown that U.S.-sanctioned bracero recruitment in the 1950s oriented many Mexican workers toward the U.S. labor market instead of toward local jobs and development.