Speech #1090120012

Careful analysis of a sample of SAW applications in California. where most applications were filed. suggests that most applicants had not done the qualifying farmwork. but over 90 percent were nonetheless approved. The propensity for fraud is not remedied in the Judiciary Committees bill and compounds bad policy with the ability for unscrupulous actors to take advantage of it. I think the most important lesson to learn from the 1986 SAW program is that providing illegal immigrants who work on the farms in this country does not benefit the agricultural workforce for long. History shows that the vast majority of illegal workers who gain a legal status leave agriculture within a 5year period. This means that under the Judiciary Committees proposed agricultural amnesty. those who questionably performed agricultural work in the past will work at least 100 or 150 hours in agriculture per year for the next 3 to 5 years. But after that. particularly in light of the changes made to the H2A program. I expect us to be in the same situation in agriculture that we are in today. It is worth noting that the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 created a Commission on Agricultural Workersan 11 member bipartisan panel comprised of growers. union representatives. academics. civil servants. and clergyand tasked it with examining the impact the amnesty for Special Agricultural Workers had on the domestic farm labor supply. working conditions. and wages. Six years after the Immigration Reform and Control Act was passed. the Commission found that the same problems in the agricultural industry persist: the living and working conditions of farm workers had not improved: wages remained stagnant. increasing numbers of new illegal aliens are arriving to compete for the same small number of jobs. thus reducing the work hours available to each worker and contributing to lower annual earnings: and virtually all workers who hold seasonal agricultural jobs are unemployed at some point during the year. I think the experience of the SAW program should serve as a lesson to the Senate as we grapple with how to handle our current illegal population. I believe the amnesty approach endorsed by the Judiciary Committee is far too similar to the SAW Program in 1986 and will likely have the same result. That is why I have introduced an amendment that will take away the amnesty from the agricultural portion of the Judiciary Committee bill. My amendment will allow illegal aliens to get blue cards in the same way that the Judiciary Committee prescribed. However. it requires that at the end of a 2year period. those blue card workers must return to their home countries and enter the U.S. in a legal manner. This 2year period provides sufficient time for agricultural employers to organize their workforce so that they can send workers home in an orderly manner and not have a complete work stoppage.