Senate Committee Passes Amnesty for Illegal Ag Workers

(NumbersUSA.com -- May 19, 2008) -- At last week's markup of the Iraq supplemental appropriations bill, the Senate Appropriations Committee committed an outrageous act of disrespect for our men and women in uniform and to the citizens of this country by adopting an amendment by Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) that gives amnesty to illegal-alien agricultural workers. The amendment indicates a maximum of 1.35 million illegal alien ag workers could obtain "emergency agricultural worker status" for a five-year period. Since their families also can obtain this status, it is estimated that the total number receiving an amnesty would reach 3 million. The committee also adopted other immigration-related amendments, including one that drastically expands the H-2B visa program for non-agricultural seasonal workers.

The full Senate may begin work on the bill on Tuesday, May 20, so please contact your Senators now to urge them to work to strip the amnesty from the Iraq spending bill on the floor, as well as the other amendments increasing immigration levels.

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The most important point to stress is that there is no need for an amnesty to provide growers with workers. There already is an H-2A foreign ag worker program that provides growers with an unlimited number of temporary workers if the growers agree to pay a decent wage and ensure that they go home at the end of the season. Feinstein is just trying to protect the abysmally low wages and bad working conditions that farmworkers labor under.

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