They do concern me. It is important we get it right. not that we want to treat anyone in a disadvantaged way. but what we do has to be accurate. it has to cre152. Pt. 7 8619 ate stability. it has to take away the competitive disadvantage the Senator from Georgia is talking about. that is real today in this disparity between those H2A workers and. if you will. the undocumented workers out there in the American workforce that the provision of the bill that deals with agriculture attempts to get its arms around and legalize through the blue card transition period the Senator and I have spoken to. It is a very important part of the bill. Both the Senator from Georgia and I have been concerned for some time and have compared numbers about an American agricultural work base built on a faulty employment base. You cannot be working 75 percent undocumented workers and be wholly dependent upon them to bring the perishable crop to the market and then have them swept out from under you. Yet we also know that when there is 1.2 to 1.5 million people in the American agricultural workforce that are foreign nationals. yet annually. the H2A as a program only effectively identifies 42.000 to 45.000. something was and is dramatically wrong. That is why the Senator is here with his amendment. That is why I am here with a major reform package within the bill.
Keywords matched
undocumented H2A