05/20/08 Feinstein-Craig immigration bill

California's Dianne Feinstein and Idaho's Larry Craig have teamed up to streamline the current H-2A agricultural guest working program by providing temporary immigration status for experienced farm workers over a five year period. NEAREBOUT "Anything we can do to move the ball on immigration is a good deal." That's Bob Nearebout of the Idaho Dairymen's Association. NEAREBOUT "For dairy producers or anybody else that's hiring somebody on a twelve month period there's not one immigration program to go to say here's how you can bring in foreign labor." Feinstein tacked the bill onto an Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill that funds the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Craig said the legislation would establish a temporary emergency agricultural program, capped at 1.35 million workers who would have to prove agricultural employment for at least 150 days or 863 hours or show they earned at least seven thousand dollars working in American agriculture during the past 48 months. To be eligible, workers also would have to pay a $250 fine plus processing fees and would be required to work at least 100 days annually in agriculture over the next five years. Voice of Idaho Agriculture Bill Scott