|
Washington, D.C. (December 10, 2019) - The House is expected to vote Wednesday on the hilariously misnamed Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which would “modernize” agricultural labor right back to the 17th century.
At the core of the bill are several indentured-labor schemes intended to tie current illegal aliens and future “temporary” workers to farm jobs for four to 10 years, before giving them green cards. The reason for the indenture system is that farmers know from experience that once the illegal aliens or visa workers get green cards, almost all will flee the medieval labor system that prevails in much of fresh fruit and vegetable agriculture.
Fact sheets on the bill are here and here. It provides immediate amnesty to illegal aliens (and their dependents) who have (or claim to have) worked at least part time in agriculture over the past two years. The number of beneficiaries is estimated to be at least 1.5 million.
To prevent the newly legalized illegals from running off to take construction or service jobs in town, the bill gives them a new “Certified Agricultural Worker” visa, which they need to keep for a period of time before becoming free workers. For those who’d already worked illegally in farming for at least 10 years, the period of indenture would be four years; eight years for those who’d been working in farming for less than 10 years. Only after putting in their time would the amnestied illegals be able to upgrade to get green cards and leave plantation labor behind. A separate 10-year period of indenture for a green card is established for legal workers on the existing (numerically unlimited) H-2A farmworker visa -- that’s where future indentured will come from after today’s illegals all get their green cards and hightail it out of the fields.
The bill also mandates use of E-Verify, but only in agriculture -- where it would no longer be needed, because with this kind of sweet deal, who’d bother to hire new illegals?
The bill, H.R. 5038, is co-sponsored by 28 Democrats and 25 Republicans, and was okayed by the House Judiciary Committee last month, without any hearings.
The problems with this 224-page contrivance are several. First, the amnesty.
Read the entire article at https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/farming-like-its-1699/.
|
