Immigration and Farm Policies go before Congress By Christine Souza

June 19, 2013 - Issues of particular interest to California farmers and ranchers will be on the agenda in Washington, D.C., this week as the U.S. Senate continues debate on comprehensive immigration reform legislation and the House of Representatives discusses federal farm policy.

In the midst of harvest, with farmers experiencing labor shortages throughout the state, California Farm Bureau Federation leaders said farmers are closely following the immigration debate.

"We're continuing to hear from farmers across California that they're having trouble hiring enough people for harvest," CFBF President Paul Wenger said. "The Senate bill isn't perfect but it's a big improvement from current programs that don't work for either farmers or their employees. It will help assure that people working on farms and ranches are here legally."

The Senate began debate last week on S. 744, the Border Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act, an immigration reform bill supported by Farm Bureau and other members of the Agriculture Workforce Coalition that collectively developed a set of principles to define an agricultural immigration program.

"The immigration bill that the Senate is working on this week will provide legal status for the people we depend on to harvest the crops, care for the animals and provide food for America," said CFBF Director of Labor Affairs Bryan Little, who also serves as chief operating officer for the Farm Employers Labor Service.

Little explained that the agricultural portion of the Senate immigration legislation includes two main principles: a "blue card" program for experienced workers, and establishment of an agricultural visa program for future guestworkers. Under the blue card program, experienced agricultural workers can obtain legal immigration status by satisfying criteria such as passing a background check, paying a fine and proving that applicable taxes have been paid. Blue Card workers would be required to continue to work in agriculture before having the opportunity to qualify for a green card.

"The highlight of the Senate bill is the blue card program that would allow the people we depend on in agriculture here in California to remain in the United States without having to leave their families and jobs in the U.S. and return to a 'home country' that they haven't been to in years," Little said.

In addition, the bill would establish a new visa program that allows agricultural employers to hire guestworkers, either under contract or at will.

"The new visa program would allow farmers to bring in agricultural workers on an as-needed basis in the future without the restriction, confusion and expense that goes along with the existing H-2A visa program," Little said. "This program will be a much more flexible, market-oriented program that allows us to hire enough people to fulfill the needs of agriculture."

Visa holders would be able to work in the U.S. under a three-year visa and work for any designated agricultural employer. The program would be administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture. The number of three-year visas would be capped at 112,333 per year; in year three, the total number of visas issued could not exceed 337,000. The U.S. secretary of agriculture could allow more people to be admitted should the cap prove to be too low.

The Senate is expected to conduct floor debate on immigration reform throughout the rest of June. Leaders want to pass the bill by a large margin, Little said, so that it gains momentum as debate moves to the House.

"They would like to get at least 70 votes out of 100 in the Senate and send it to the House with strong momentum for reform," Little said. "Right now, the House is beginning work on immigration reform bills and we hope a strong vote in the Senate will encourage the House to move ahead."

In the meantime, the House Judiciary Committee will consider individual immigration measures.

Also on the House side of the Capitol, floor debate begins on its version of the 2013 Farm Bill.

Josh Rolph of the CFBF Federal Policy Division said final votes on the House bill are expected this week. The most controversial areas of debate include funding cuts to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or food stamps, and debate over development of a new dairy program.

"We look forward to a healthy debate in the House," Rolph said. "The next step (after House passage) would be a conference between the two chambers, which would occur in July. If the House bill passes, there is hope that a farm bill can be completed before the Sept. 30 deadline," when the current bill expires.

(Christine Souza is an assistant editor of Ag Alert. She may be contacted at  This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .)

Reprinted with permission: California Farm Bureau Federation

Mr. Speaker:

In the early 1760’s the Royal Governor of Massachusetts began issuing “writs of assistance” as general warrants to search for contraband.  They empowered officials to search indiscriminately for evidence of smuggling.

These warrants were challenged in February of 1761 by James Otis, who argued forcefully that they violated the natural rights of Englishmen and were in fact, “instruments of slavery.” 

A 25-year old attorney who attended the trial later wrote,   “Every man of a crowded audience appeared to me to go away, as I did, ready to take arms against writs of assistance.  Then and there the child Independence was born.” That young lawyer was John Adams.  To him, that’s the moment the American Revolution began – the general warrants were the first warning that his king had become a tyrant.

The Founders specifically wrote the Fourth Amendment to assure that indiscriminate government searches never happened again in America.  In America, in order for the Government to invade your privacy or to go through your personal records or effects, it must first present some evidence that justifies its suspicion against you and then specify what records or things it is looking for.

Last week, we learned that the federal government is today returning to those general warrants on a scale unimaginable in Colonial times by seizing the phone and Internet records of virtually every American.

We’re told that this is perfectly permissible under past Supreme Court rulings because the government is not monitoring content but only records held by a third party.  This wouldn’t be the first time the Supreme Court has erred grievously.

If phone records are outside the protection of the Fourth Amendment because they are held by a third party, then so, too, are all of our records or effects held by third parties.   That means the property you keep in storage or with a family member, the private medical records held by your physician, the backup files of your computer maintained on another server -- are all subject to indiscriminate search.  Many of the general warrants served in Boston were on warehouses owned by third parties.

Even if we were to accept this rationale, then that third party – for example, the phone company – should itself still be safe from general warrants like those that have apparently scooped up the phone and internet records of every American.

It is argued with Orwellian logic that it’s permissible to seize these records indiscriminately since they aren’t actually searched until a legal warrant is issued by a secret FISA court.  But if general warrants can produce the evidence for specific warrants, isn’t the Fourth Amendment prohibition against general warrants rendered meaningless?  And all we know of the secret FISA court and its deliberations is that out of 34,000 warrants requested by the government, it has rejected only 11– hardly a testament to judicial prudence or independence.

We are told that the information will only be used to search for terrorists.  Does anyone actually believe this?  Just a few months ago, the Director of National Intelligence brazenly lied to Congress when he denied the program existed at all.  Just a few weeks ago, we learned that this administration has taken confidential tax information belonging to political opponents and leaked it to political supporters.  Is there anyone so naïve as to believe the same thing won’t be done with phone and Internet records if it suits the designs of powerful officials?

A free society does not depend on a police state that tracks the behavior of every citizen for its security.  A free society depends instead on principles of law that protect liberty while meting out stern punishment to those who abuse it.  It doesn’t mean we catch every criminal or terrorist – it means that those we do catch are brought to justice as a warning to others.  This is true whether we are enforcing the laws of our nation or the law of nations.

Indeed, if we had responded to the attack on September 11th with the same seriousness as we responded to Pearl Harbor, terrorism would not be the threat that it is today.

Ours is not the first civilization to be seduced by the siren song of a benevolent all-powerful government.  But without a single exception, every civilization that has succumbed to this lie has awakened one morning to find the benevolence is gone and the all-powerful government is still there.

Mr. Speaker, this is our wakeup call and we ignore it at extreme peril to our liberty.