Pauls' Revere
11-08-2019, 03:48 AM
https://www.cato.org/blog/bipartisan-bill-increases-legal-migration-legalizes-farmworkers?
A bipartisan group of about 50 House members, equally divided between both parties, introduced legislation today that expands both permanent and temporary migration for agriculture, while legalizing illegal farmworkers. The Farm Workforce Modernization Act will be the most significant effort to reform legal immigration since the 2013 comprehensive reform bill in the Senate, and it will likely pass the House on a broad bipartisan vote before Thanksgiving. This legislation will significantly reduce the illegal market in farm labor and provide reliable a legal supply for workers for farms going forward.
The legislation does not construct the ideal system for farmers or workers because it maintains and incorporates into statute the stilted bureaucratic regulatory structure of the existing H-2A program that harms employers and undermines the rights of H-2A workers. It also mandates the hopelessly flawed and ineffective E-Verify employment surveillance system for agricultural employers and their employees, legal or otherwise.
Nonetheless, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act improves the legal migration process significantly, aligns incentives for workers to comply with the law, and expands eligibility for farmers and workers to participate in the legal system. I have written in favor of many of these changes on several occasions. The H-2A program has helped to direct would-be illegal immigrants from Mexico into the legal channels, resulting in far fewer illegal crossings in recent years.
A bipartisan group of about 50 House members, equally divided between both parties, introduced legislation today that expands both permanent and temporary migration for agriculture, while legalizing illegal farmworkers. The Farm Workforce Modernization Act will be the most significant effort to reform legal immigration since the 2013 comprehensive reform bill in the Senate, and it will likely pass the House on a broad bipartisan vote before Thanksgiving. This legislation will significantly reduce the illegal market in farm labor and provide reliable a legal supply for workers for farms going forward.
The legislation does not construct the ideal system for farmers or workers because it maintains and incorporates into statute the stilted bureaucratic regulatory structure of the existing H-2A program that harms employers and undermines the rights of H-2A workers. It also mandates the hopelessly flawed and ineffective E-Verify employment surveillance system for agricultural employers and their employees, legal or otherwise.
Nonetheless, the Farm Workforce Modernization Act improves the legal migration process significantly, aligns incentives for workers to comply with the law, and expands eligibility for farmers and workers to participate in the legal system. I have written in favor of many of these changes on several occasions. The H-2A program has helped to direct would-be illegal immigrants from Mexico into the legal channels, resulting in far fewer illegal crossings in recent years.