Jim Ogonowski says he’s a farmer. But he seems to be a tad out of touch with what’s going on in the farming business.
With a nationwide farmworker shortage threatening to leave unharvested fruits and vegetables rotting in fields, the Bush administration has begun quietly rewriting federal regulations to eliminate barriers that restrict how foreign laborers legally can be brought into the country. The urgent effort, underway at the US departments of Homeland Security, State, and Labor, is meant to rescue farm owners caught in a vise between a complex process to hire legal guest-workers and stepped-up enforcement that has reduced the number of undocumented planters, pickers, and even middle managers crossing the border.
“It is important for the farm sector to have access to labor to stay competitive,” said White House spokesman Scott Stanzel. “As the southern border has tightened, some producers have a more difficult time finding a workforce and that is a factor of what is going on today.” The push to rewrite the regulations quickly is also the Bush administration’s attempt to step into the breach left when Congress failed to pass an immigration measure in June. The legislation could have addressed the reality of American farms, where almost three-quarters of the workers are thought to be illegal immigrants. …
[F]armers in areas such as California’s San Joaquin Valley, which is experiencing a 20 percent labor shortfall, worry the administration’s changes will not happen soon enough for the 2008 growing season.
“It’s like a ticking time bomb that’s going to go off,” said Luawanna Hallstrom, chief operating officer of Harry Singh & Sons, a third-generation family farm in Oceanside, Calif., that grows tomatoes. “I’m looking at my fellow farmers and saying, ‘Oh my God, what’s going on?’ “
HT to Dick Howe, who has a nice post up on this topic. Ogo, of course, thinks that Bush’s immigration bill was a bad idea that suffered a well-deserved death. Hence my question: Why does Jim Ogonowski hate American farmers??
I’m glad bloggers are picking up this story. It has local implications for small farmers here, as well as the large farms of the west and south. I posted a comment last night on this issue that got lost in the “gutter” discussion (and got a drive-by troll rating, to boot).
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Without repeating my earlier comments, it’s worth noting the local impact of the Bush administration’s incompetence in creating a workable program for legal agricultural labor. My local orchard doesn’t seem this year to have the crew of Jamaican workers who have worked the orchard seasonally for many years (It’s been the same guys for a long time). This year, when I drive by, the apples are being picked by prisoners from some local jail, supervised by prison guards.
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The immigration snafus are also affecting businesses in resort areas, such as Cape Cod. The Cape has 5,000-6,000 seasonal workers on H2B visas each year, yet the allocation of such visas for the entire country is now just 66,000, with only half of that number available for the summer season. An exemption that allowed Cape Cod employers to grandfather in some existing employees was allowed to expire last week (Cape Cod Times).
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It’s important that our next House rep for MA-05 is not caught up in the “oogity-boogity immigrants are bad” approach to public policy. The Mass. economy relies on immigrants for important work. The right-wing, talk-radio approach to immigration is a real roadblock to rational approaches to legal and illegal immigration.
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It is my understanding that H2-B visas are given to people so they are legally able to work in the United States, am I wrong? I would support increasing the number of H2-B visas as long as background checks on people from countries where we think terrorists come from is done. I am, and Jim Ogonowski has repeatedly said he is, all for legal immigration.
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Do you want to set up a guest worker program for people who are currently in Mexico or Latin America, I’m all for it.
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Do you want to increase the amount of total legal immigrants, legally? I’m all for it.
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What you guys fail to understand is what I and Jim Ogonowski and others like us are against is giving the people who broke our laws the ability to become citizens, especially when so many people obeyed our laws in coming here. It really is that simple, it’s not racism, it’s not anti-immigrant sentiment, it truly is obey the law. I’m not against changing that law as long as amnesty in the form of a “pathway to citizenship” is not in the bill being proposed.
I’m glad you’re all for legal immigration. One of the tragedies of the right-wing’s rush to make immigration the wedge issue du jour is the impact on legal immigration. In one of the few bipartisan initiatives in the last several years, the President and the Senate put together a pretty comprehensive immigration reform package. It certainly wasn’t perfect, but it was one of the better attempts we’ve made to tighten the borders, meet the needs of American employers, and deal with the 12-13 million people who are already here illegally. As the President said, earlier this year (in words that could be an Ogonowski campaign commercial):
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“I view this as an historic opportunity for Congress to act, for Congress to replace a system that is not working with one that we believe will work a lot better. In other words, this is a moment for people who have been elected to come together, focus on a problem, and show the American people that we can work together to fix the problem.” Whitehouse.gov.
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That package was filibustered in the Senate (MSNBC Story) by Republicans, and immigration action is likely dead until at least 2009. Thanks to the concerted effort by right wing conservatives and the frenzied bleating of talk radio hosts, at this point, immigration is the wedge issue for upcoming elections, and needed legal immigration measures are being sacrificed at the altar of political expediency. Case in point: legislation we need to support agricultural and seasonal workers–legislation that businesses large and small depend on, even in MA-05.
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The Republican strategy has worked pretty well in border districts and in local races. MA-05 is a Republican test market for its election strategy in inland distrcts, and Jim Ogonowski has thrown his lot in with the worst of the right-wing anti-immigration zealots. If voters want someone who will support continued gridlock in Washington on this major issue, he’s your man. If you support comprehensive immigration reform to meet the needs of businesses and families, I would suggest voters look to Niki Tsongas.
Has never said he is against legal immigration. In fact he has praised legal immigration on many occasions I’ve seen him speak. He is against illegal immigration and doesn’t support the bill you speak of because of the amnesty provision in it. Take out amnesty I would imagine he supports the rest of that bill.
God, I’ve read this same debate over immigration over and over again and it always lands in the same dead end.
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People like Ogo say they’re not anti-immigrant, they are only anti illegal immigrant. And initially they make a good point. That people who didn’t follow all the proper procedures shouldn’t be rewarded for that, because its unfair to all the immigrants who did.
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Fair enough. But then when people try to come up with a plan to bring these millions of immigrants into the fold, they scream “AMNESTY OMG!”. But what I’ve read isn’t “Amnesty”. Amnesty is a wiping away of a crime – a pardon. What I’ve seen are plans that propose these immigrants go through pain to get the citizenship they want. They’ll need to pay fines, learn english, and so on. That’s not “amnesty”.
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Opponents of these plans offer no alternative other than screaming “AMNESTY OMG!” There is no other solution for the immigrants who are already here. The horse has left the barn. You can’t deport 12 million people. That’s stupid.
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So in the end, the Ogo’s of the world are not offering any solutions. They don’t have a workable plan. All they are offering is hot rhetoric. And that’s the dead end I always reach with them. They don’t have solutions. They’re just peddling fear. And I know why.
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They don’t offer plans to bing these immigrants into the fold because they don’t want them in the fold. They’d prefer they all go home. That’s the truth, no matter what rhetorical games they play – the truth is – they don’t want them in the country at all. If they did, they’d embrace some of these plans and stop screaming “AMNESTY OMG!”
That does not require the illegal immigrant to go home and get in line (mind you I support a shorter line) is Amnesty. We should toughen rules on employers and simultaneously deport those illegals we find. We should not make it welcoming to be here illegally.
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Niki Tsongas in the NECN debate said as much, but then she got up in arms when talking about the Bianco raid where the government did what she wanted. Then she said something about alligators. Really now, alligators?
Sorry!
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You meant to say ‘illegal’ there, didn’t you?
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And entering the country illegally IS against..well.. the LAW. So creating new and artificial hurdles for these illegal immigrants is a form of amnesty.
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You can’t deport 12 million people? Why not? Perhaps not in a lump and on the same day, but enforcing the country’s laws isn’t a bulk exercise. Not all thieves are tried on the same day, either – nobody suggests not presecuting them because there are too many.
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Potroast – yes, they DO prefer that all ILLEGAL immigrants go home. In fact that is exactly what they say. (Did you notice you dropped the ‘illegal’ in that paragraph, too?)
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Often, when statements are made about illegal immigrants, they get repeated by progressives omitting the word Illegal, to prove how ‘racist’ conseratives are. I realize that some posters (KyleDeb comes to mind) don’t believe there IS any such thing as an illegal immigrant, rather in the same spirit as thinking there is no such thing as a bad boy. That is NOT what conservatives are saying. We oppose ILLEGAL immigration, not all immigration. And for the record, I personally think it’s time to ditch the additional quota Ted Kennedy wrote into the LAST immigration law overhaul for Ireland, as their economy HAS gotten better in the last 30 years – let’s pass that on to some other European nation in need, like Bulgaria or Lithuania, who usually have to rely on H2B to come here to work now.
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And until Emma Lazarus’ words are enacted into statute, they’re nothing but a poem carved on the side of a monument.
Seriously, what would happen if a candidate stepped forward and said they want mexican immigrants coming to the US and to stop them from swimming across the river and coming illegally, they are going to set up a large processing center in Texas (Ellis Island for the 21st century) so that all these people will be coming here legally.
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Right. The GOP base would have a seizure.
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Thats why your plans are all about walls and deportation.
Not ALL plans center on enforcement – but the FIRST plans do.
This year, when I drive by, the apples are being picked by prisoners from some local jail, supervised by prison guards.
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…prisoners from various jails and prisons competing with private sector labor? That is a recipe for disaster, further driving down wages in the private unskilled or semi-skilled labor sector. Competition from illegals who might be paid below minimum wage is bad enough, but competition from prison inmates is horrible.
is like calling Wal-Mart a family corner store.
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If these farms are having trouble finding workers, they should raise their wages.
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I thought for sure I read that Ogonowski worked with legal immigrants on his Dracut farm, taking over the farmer-to-farmer work begun by his brother. I saw something similar when I worked for a farmer in Rowley who sponsored the immigration of a farmer from Peru.
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I don’t see why anyone would prefer to run around the legal routes except to help keep their wages below market. It wasn’t too long ago that it would be a major political scandal to have it learned that your nanny or housekeeper was in the country illegally. Now, not so much. It’s like the new middle-class slave trade.
….Five Brothers shirts used as part of their advertising campaigns, “No Prison Labor!”.
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Of course, they’re bankrupt now…
When candidates like Ogo go with bumper sticker solutions to complex problems, real debate and real solutions never see the light of day. Perfect example here.
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BTW thanks to Raj and dweir for pointing out both the prisoners aspect and the self-serving of employers who say “no US worker will take the job”. Of course they will if you pay them a living wage. What employers are really saying is “I want the maximum profit and will take the low road to get it”.