Agricultural Personnel Management Program
University of California

---

Statement on Migrant Workers, by Senator Gordon Smith,
as printed in the Congressional Record, February 23, 2000
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Congressional Record: February 23, 2000 (Senate)
[Page S710-S711]

MIGRANT WORKERS

  Mr. SMITH of Oregon. Mr. President, every time we have a recess and
there is an occasion to go home, invariably we all learn something of
significance that helps us in our service in the Senate. I thought I
would take to the floor of the Senate today and speak about something I
learned, something I experienced which I wanted to highlight. Right
now, it is an issue that is sort of a low light in this body.

  Earlier in this Congress, Senator Bob Graham of Florida and I
introduced a bill to fix our H-2A guest worker program that affects
agriculture. Preceding that, Senators Graham and Wyden and I met with
the Secretary of Labor and pleaded for the administration to come
forward with some sort of fix to relieve the pressure on the farm labor
system. There are enough workers, but you have to settle for an illegal
system to conclude that there are enough workers. The Secretary assured

[[Page S711]]

us that something would be forthcoming, but nothing has been.

  In the meantime, I have gone forward with this fix of our farm guest
worker program in the hopes of getting something through in this
Congress that could win the support of the administration and begin to
relieve a problem I have now seen in a very human way.

  I had scheduled two meetings last Thursday, one in Woodburn, OR, and
the other in Gresham, OR. The subject was farm labor. I invited people
to come and talk about my bill. I was overwhelmed by what occurred. We
met first in an armory in Woodburn. When I arrived, it was already
filled to capacity. There were 1,200 people, most of them illegal, in
the armory waiting for me to come. They had been there, I was told, for
an hour or more ahead of time, hoping to get a seat to hear what was
going to be shared. There were so many people in the armory, they had
to put a speaker on the outside grounds so that those who could not get
in could hear. Some in the media estimated there were 2,000 people in
total.

  I looked into their faces and saw those who live in our society,
those who live in the shadows of our society, those who fill jobs in
our society, those who keep our shelves full at home and in our grocery
stores, but those who are victimized in the most inhumane way because
we have an unworkable law.

  I heard all kinds of opinions about my bill. I granted to them that
it probably wasn't a perfect bill, but at least I was trying--one of
the few who are--to resolve this situation. I thank Senator Graham of
Florida for his willingness to step into this issue. One gets lots of
arrows in the back when they try to tackle an immigration issue.

  What motivates me to do this is almost weekly reports of migrant
workers dying in the American deserts of the Southwest, trying to make
their way to jobs. These are people who are victimized by human
coyotes. They are raped. They are robbed. They are bribed. They are
pillaged in ways that are unthinkable, and ought to be unthinkable, in
this country. It happens because they have no safe and legal way to
come here and to go home, to work a job, to earn their way, and to
share the American dream, which is really just a human dream. That was
the motive upon which I tackled this issue.

  The law we have regarding our guest worker system doesn't work. There
are estimates of 2 million illegal aliens in this country working in
agriculture. There are estimates of 6 million illegal aliens in the
United States. I was trying to focus on agriculture. Let me tell you
why this system doesn't work.

  First of all, it is economically beyond the pale of most of those in
the farm communities who would like to hire them. This is the
application. There are hundreds of pages a farmer has to comply with to
hire one worker. Conversely, I applied for a job in the Senate, I had
to fill out a two-page document. This is what a farmer has to fill out
just to get a worker in a system that is untimely as the crops go
unharvested.

  We have a broken system. I believe it is estimated about 30,000 in
total in this country use this system out of probably 2 million illegal
aliens in agriculture. I think it is a given, a manifest failure. We
need to make our guest worker law workable. That is a long-term
solution. I think we need to do this.

  What made my meetings, frankly, more productive and very helpful was
a press release from the AFL-CIO, in which they called not for help to
farmers and farm workers alone, they called for a general amnesty of
all illegal aliens in this country. A general amnesty is something we
have done in this country periodically; every few decades we seem to do
this. The question now is whether it is appropriate to do that now.

  There have been lots of editorial comments about this recently in the
Washington Post. There was a very interesting article on this whole
issue of farm labor and illegality. The Post said:

       Congress has responded sympathetically to the pleas of the
     high-tech industry to hire more skilled workers from abroad,
     but it has yet to do anything for employers of those at the
     bottom end of the labor market--the end where U.S. citizens
     don't want to work. Now, with a record number of illegal
     immigrants living in the United States, an estimated 6
     million, with most of them working, some even paying taxes
     and joining unions, it is time to bring our immigration
     policies in line with what is actually happening in the labor
     market. It is time to recognize that we need the immigrants
     as much as they need us.

  See, I know in Congress there are a lot of people who make an
academic argument that we don't want to reward illegal behavior with a
legal document. I understand that, but it doesn't fix the problem. It
doesn't deal with reality. These people aren't coming; they are here
and they live among us. They live in our shadows and they are
victimized on a daily basis in a whole range of ways--bureaucratically,
even criminally. It is a shame upon this country that we don't resolve
this--short-term and long-term.

  I was pleased that in the recent testimony of Federal Reserve
Chairman Alan Greenspan he gave support to what I am talking about.
Said the Chairman:

       It is clear that under existing circumstances, not only in
     the high-tech and in the farm area, but indeed throughout the
     country, aggregate demand is putting very significant
     pressures on an ever-decreasing available supply of
     unemployed labor. The one obvious means that one can use to
     offset that is expanding the number of people we allow in,
     either generally or in specifically focused areas. And I do
     not think that an appraisal of our immigration policies in
     this regard is really clearly on the table.

  I think we need to put it clearly on the table as a priority of this
Congress to do something about it. It need not be partisan. Regarding
the position the AFL-CIO has just taken, I hope they will let me help
them. I would like to help them to get a general amnesty. But I think
that we also need to fix our broken farm labor system.

  For those who say we should not do anything, I don't know what their
motive is. I fear too often, though, that it is just anti-immigrant. We
rightfully criticize, for example, Joerg Haider, of Austria for his
anti-immigrant statement, which recalls a bygone era and a great
tragedy. But what is the difference when we have politicians among us
who make comments not unlike that about even legal immigration? They
don't want anymore of it.

  We have the Chairman of the Federal Reserve saying we need workers
because we have good employment, but it is predicated on an illegal
system. We need these jobs to be filled and we need crops harvested.
Right now, we are victimizing farm workers and farmers because farm
workers have to live like fugitives among us, and farmers are made out
to be felons. We owe the United States something better. But, more, we
owe the people at the bottom rung something better. They contribute to
our society and they are victimized too often by our society when they
make a significant contribution to the abundance that we enjoy as
Americans.

  So I call on our congressional leadership to bring us together, to
fix our H-2A program, but also to pursue the amnesty that has been
suggested by the AFL-CIO in this two-pronged approach. We can find a
solution and we can treat these people more fairly, like human beings,
with the dignity of law and the protection of law and a process that is
safe and humane.