Immigration Issues

Immigration Issues. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

When it comes to a job, most people want work that provides a steady, stable paycheck, not something that’s seasonal. That’s why some industries have to hire skilled foreign workers to do that work through what is called the H-2B program. Whether it is here in the northwest or the Gulf coast there are issues. Louisiana Commissioner of Agriculture and Forestry Dr. Mike Strain says new rules for that program are a problem for his state’s economy.

STRAIN: Any American can get that job first, has first right at this these jobs. These are jobs we cannot fill on a seasonal basis. You’re seeing a number of businesses close because they cannot get H2B workers. Back home right now we’re having extreme difficulty getting people to work in the crawfish industry to peel crawfish. A number of companies are either talking about closing down or moving their operations to Mexico.

Strain says the process is already too cumbersome.

STRAIN: It’s becoming almost impossible to get these workers in. They’ve made the whole process extraordinarily difficult. You have to go through four different state and federal agencies. It’s very time consuming and quite costly. The average employer has to spend you know anywhere from $1,000 to $1,500 just to go through the whole application process.

But he says proposed rule changes would make the situation even worse, harming the economic base and it serves no purpose.

That’s today’s Line On Agriculture. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.