Immigration Issues Part 2
Immigration Issues part 2. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.
Many states have proposed various ideas and solutions for ensuring a steady and viable workforce but according to Mike Gempler, Executive Director of the Washington Growers League this is not where the solution lies.
GEMPLER: It’s already a hot potato in Congress what kind of visas are issued and that’s why it takes a bi-partisan, kind of strange bedfellow coalition to get together and come up with a negotiated solution. Anything else is dead in the water.
Gempler says the solution is AgJobs and the issue of visas on a state level stops the state plans cold.
GEMPLER: In order for the state to do it they would have to have the authority to issue visas. That’s something controlled by the Department of Homeland Security, by USCIS which is a division of Homeland Security and it’s their job to issue visas, to interview people, to let them in and out and all that kind of stuff.
The federal government would have to issue waivers to every state and that is something not likely to happen according to Gempler. He says he is often asked about other solutions.
GEMPLER: You know it’s interesting, I get comments from farmers who say well yeah what about these other bills and they all these things that are so much better for agriculture. Yes they do and we could even write a bill that was just absolutely a dream bill for agriculture, for immigration but it would never pass.
We’ll finish up our conversation with Mike Gempler on Monday.
That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.