Senate Immigration Deal Part 3

Senate Immigration Deal Part 3. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Fruit Grower Report.

The Senate’s immigration deal is being torn apart and scrutinized...all 844 pages of it and according to Washington Farm Labor Association’s Dan Fazio the program will be run for the most part by the USDA.

FAZIO: I think that based on that there is going to be competition for these visas and that the people who are using the H2A program are going to have an advantage about getting these visas because they’ll know how to use the system. And the system is basically if the employer registers with the employment office and puts a job offer in saying, hey I need work, they don’t have to do a lot of recruiting domestically but there is some aspect to that and then of course, once they have the job out they contact their preferred worker of the worker they want to get in Mexico or wherever and there’s two programs that share the visas. It’s a W2 or W3 visa to make it confusing with the W-2 you give your workers of course. But one of these visas is for workers who’ll be willing to work for only one employer under kind of a contract and then the other visa is what they call an “at will” worker who can jump around from employer to employer.

If all of this sounds a bit confusing...well it is and even the experts are still haggling over how it will finally all iron out. Fazio says that the Washington Farm Labor Association has posted a bill summary on their website to help at wafla.org.

That’s today’s Fruit Grower Report. I’m Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network.