AgJOBS News
 

May 22, 2008

Update on AgJOBS and the Emergency Agriculture Relief Act

On May 15, 2008, the Emergency Agriculture Relief Act experienced a significant victory in the Senate Appropriations Committee when Senator Feinstein offered the Act as an amendment to the supplemental appropriations bill for the Iraq war.  The amendment won on a strong bipartisan basis (17-12), with seven Republicans supporting the bill (Senators Stevens, Specter, Domenici, Bond, Bennett, Craig, and Brownback).  After the Committee’s vote, anti-immigrant forces activated.  Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL) vigorously objected to the Act on the Senate floor.  Anti-immigrant media personalities blasted it as “amnesty.”  Xenophobic advocacy groups launched a campaign to generate faxes and phone calls to Congress.  The White House opposed including the Act in the spending bill.

The Emergency Agriculture Relief Act is no longer in the supplemental appropriations bill because it faced procedural difficulties as substantive legislation on a spending bill. The Act was removed from the bill when Senator Menendez (D-NJ), a member of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, objected to it.  The CHC opposes piecemeal immigration legislation and is advocating for a comprehensive legislative solution. Sen. Sessions undoubtedly would have objected after making several long speeches attacking the Act.

Senators Feinstein and Craig committed to seeking another vehicle for this critical piece of legislation.  The legislative options in this presidential election year, however, are dwindling.

The Emergency Agriculture Relief Act is a temporary solution to address urgent needs until Congress returns to pass a more comprehensive solution.  The Act has bipartisan support and is the product of careful negotiations between farmworkers (led by the United Farm Workers) and their employers.  Like AgJOBS, the Emergency Relief Act contains two components.  It would reform the H-2A temporary foreign agricultural worker program (these reforms would supersede the Bush Administration’s pending plans to make anti-worker changes to the H-2A program regulations).  The Act also would regularize the status of many farmworkers by providing a temporary resident status to qualified, law-abiding undocumented farmworkers as long as they continued to work in agriculture.  Spouses and minor children also would receive a temporary status. 

Unlike AgJOBS, the Emergency Relief Act would expire in 5 years and would not provide the temporary residents with a path to permanent immigration status.  A stalemate in Congress over immigration policy is impeding a long-term resolution of the problems that AgJOBS would solve.  The Emergency Relief Act’s expiration date and other features would force the stakeholders and Congress to return to the issues in the near future to pass a permanent and effective solution such as AgJOBS. 

FJ press release

UFW press release

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