WASHINGTON, D.C. — As two powerful House committees consider boosting the H-2A foreign agricultural temporary visa program to allow for the first time yearround instead of just seasonal or temporary guest workers, a new nonpartisan immigrant policy study cites a continued uptick of issuing more agriculture worker visas to aid a farm worker labor shortage.

 

With the U.S. labor market tightening as the unemployment rate shrinks to 4.3 percent and U.S. farm workers deserting the fields for more permanent jobs, the ag industry is relying on the government’s temporary worker visa program for more farmhands to harvest and pick the nation’s crops.

On average, the USDA reports these temporary immigrant workers are making $12 per hour, the highest ever. At the U.S. Department of State, a spokesman who did not provide his name downplayed the increase, telling Farm World, “Visa demand is cyclical, not uniform throughout the year, and affected by various factors at the local and international level.”

From March-July, the State Department issued more than 82,000 visas for the quarter, compared to 134,368 for the entire 12 months of 2017. The government only began reporting monthly figures in March.

As the trend continues both the State and Labor (DOL) departments will have certified and approved up to 200,000 part-time farm helper visas for 2017, statistics indicate.

 

Farmers have to get permission from the DOL to bring in foreign workers using a category of visa called H-2A, but it’s the State Department that issues the visas in the countries where the workers reside and must apply. This past April as the harvest season geared up, the government issued 23,841 H-2A visas alone for Mexican immigrant workers heading to U.S. farms.

In addition, 1,549 workers came from Jamaica and Guatemala, the next two countries producing the largest number of approved H-2A temporary farm workers.

As the farm worker demand increased, the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service (USCIS) “uncapped” the H-2A visa process, authorizing an unlimited number of foreign workers to enter the country, according to the Immigration Policy Institute (IPS) in Washington, D.C., which issued the visa study on July 20.

A day earlier, the House Appropriations Committee adopted an amendment to the fiscal 2018 Homeland Security spending bill that would expand the range of farm businesses that can apply for temporary or seasonal H-2A visa workers. The measure would also allow for year-round agricultural workers.

It did not change the limit on how long a worker can stay in the country (three years with renewals), nor would it change the fact that farmers must first seek U.S workers to fill those positions.

The committee’s provision was lauded by National Milk Producers Federation President/CEO Jim Mulhern, who said, “This amendment recognizes that we need to create new approaches to address the needs of dairy employers for a legal, reliable supply of farm help.”

Laurie Fischer, CEO of the American Dairy Coalition, praised the bipartisan support for the measure. “Our cows need to be cared for 24 hours a day, 365 days a year,” she said. “The dairy industry demands visa program to help alleviate the severe labor shortages across large segments of the industry.”

The legislation, which needs further study before it reaches a full House vote, is opposed by the United Farm Workers Union who stated it fears the extension of the H-2A program would take away jobs of American workers. Giev Kashkooli, vice president of the UFW, said he would launch a campaign to stop the measure from reaching the House floor. The American Farm Bureau Federation is still studying the measure.

Also on July 19, the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and Border Security held a hearing with speakers from Frey Farms of Illinois and Gebbers Apple Orchards of Washington state, urging support for revisions to the H-2A program similar to those passed by the House appropriations subcommittee.

House Judiciary Committee Chair Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) said, “It’s clear that the current program is outdated and broken for American farmers, and it’s well past the time to replace it with a reliable, efficient and fair program … for seasonal as well as year-round.”

Also opposing the House committees’ actions is Bruce Goldstein, president of Farmworker Justice, saying, “Expanding the H-2A program to year-round jobs would contravene the purpose of the program and further distort the agricultural labor market. 

 

Agricultural employers with year-round jobs should do what any other employer must do to attract and retain workers: Improve wages and working conditions. It makes little sense to allow employers to hire H-2A workers to displace their current undocumented farm workers.”

The farm labor crisis has not gone unnoticed by a farm management expert who advises Congress, Michigan State University professor Adam Kantrovich. He said farmers have been forced to turn to more H-2A visa applicants because U.S. farm workers who have toiled the soil for years are leaving the fields.

“Current workers are scarce. They are leaving the fields. It’s tough work and they are moving to more permanent positions,” he explained. “Farmers are turning to H-2A workers as a last resort, as U.S. families (of farm workers) are getting older and don’t want to work in the fields anymore.”

Kantrovich added while famers are getting these new workers, the cost of hiring them comes with the added expenses of housing and feeding them as required the government.

Under the H-2A program, most temporary immigrant workers remain in the United States less than the maximum of 10 months a year and are certified to work an average of 167 days, 24 days a month. After this, they must return to their resident country. Some in Congress say this is what they want to change.