Speech #1090134024

President. I have said it before and I say it again today that I think the approach taken in this legislation we are considering today is contrary to the best interests of agriculture. By ignoring proper enforcement of our immigration laws for many years. the Federal Government has been sending the wrong message to farmers and ranchers across the United States: that it pays to break the law. Quite literally. it has. For those who have flouted rule of law by refusing to utilize the temporary worker program for agriculturethe H2A programhave gained a tremendous economic advantage over their counterparts who have adhered to the laws on the books today. I will be the first to admit that some farmers have had little choice but to utilize an illegal workforcefor the H2A program. as presently written has its limitations for instance. farmers with jobs that are not seasonal are not able to utilize it. However. changes can be made to the H2A program to make it more responsive to the needs of agriculture and more userfriendly for farmers. That is what the focus of immigration reform should be. Instead. the bill we are considering today is putting in statute what has only been implied previously by the Federal Governments blind eye about illegal workers: it pays to break the law. This statement is truest in the agricultural section of this bill than anywhere else. The amendment I have introduced is one of a series that I will file that will attempt to eliminate some of the hardships this bill levies on those agricultural employers who have been and will continue to utilize the legal program we have in place for temporary agricultural workers. Currently. agricultural employers who utilize the H2A program must pay all workers in the occupation in which they utilize H2A workers the higher of the applicable minimum wage rate. the prevailing wage rate. or the adverse effect wage rate. In almost every instance. the adverse effect wage rate is the highest of these options. Conversely. those agricultural employers who utilize an illegal workforce and. are often competitors of those using the H2A program. are governed by no wage floor and generally end up paying around the Federal minimum wage rate. sometimes less. Obviously those who utilize an illegal workforce have a significant competitive advantage over their H2A user counterparts based on overhead costs due to wage rates alone. And those illegal workers are subject to abusive payment practices by some employers. Historically. approval of an employers use of nonimmigrant visaholding foreign workers was predicated on two things: No. 1.