11/24/08 Immigration Heating Up, Again

Immigration Heating Up, Again. I'm Greg Martin with today's Line On Agriculture. Immigration reform may be one of the most controversial issues facing the nation, but farmers who rely on foreign workers hope that won't stop it from getting attention from the new President and Congress. American Farm Bureau Immigration Specialist Paul Schlegel says during the campaign President-Elect Obama said he understands how important the issue is to agriculture. SCHLEGEL: He said he would give it a priority in 2009. Given the economy and how things have evolved. We don't know how that will affect the agenda but we do know that as a campaigner this was an important issue to him. The Obama team has already put together an immigration policy working group. SCHLEGEL: He particularly said that he would give AgJobs, which is a comprehensive agricultural immigration bill, priority in 2009. There are aspects of AgJobs that are very strongly supported by agriculture it would give us stability in the near term on our labor. Schlegel says a controversial labor rule that's held up in court could also get more attention. The no-match rule would use letters from the Social Security Administration to enforce laws against knowingly employing illegal workers. SCHLEGEL: Because it's in litigation, because it's controversial and because it represents a policy decision made by the bush administration they might look at it and either try to resolve the court case by withdrawing the rule or taking some other position. With the Obama Team already getting to work on the immigration issue, Schlegel says that Farm Bureau is offering support. SCHLEGEL: The Obama transition has just appointed a couple of individuals to focus on immigration policies and what should be their priorities as they come into office. We're pleased that they've done that. It continues to be a tremendously important issue to agriculture. We're going to be reaching out to that team to give them Farm Bureau's position on how to handle these issues, what to address. So we consider it positive at this stage of the game they have people in place that will look at immigration. So the big question remains how soon before we start seeing some results? SCHLEGEL: We do know that people have indicated some skepticism that they're going to bring up legislation in a comprehensive fashion before 2011. Those might be informed judgments, but they're just opinions and our job is not to wait for things to happen. It's to try to help create an atmosphere in which they will happen and that's what we're going to try to do. That's today's Line On Agriculture. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.