Immigration Reform Shaping Up

Immigration Reform Shaping Up. I’m Greg Martin with today’s Line On Agriculture.

Bipartisan legislation made its way out of the Judicial Committee and is all set for debate on the Senate floor when Congress gets back from Memorial Day recess. American Farm Bureau labor specialist Kristi Boswell says she’s optimistic that Congress will finally fix the nation’s broken immigration system, which would include farm labor provisions.

BOSWELL: This process has been so dramatically different than past attempts. All the 300 amendments were posted online for review. All the markup sessions were streamed live. Every introducer of an amendment got full time to debate and to fully vet the amendment. Allowing even the strongest opponents to vet and discuss and debate their amendments makes everyone more comfortable with what the ultimate product is.

The agreement has two main components. First is the creation of a blue card program in which experienced agricultural workers would get a blue card work visa. That could cover those working here without permission or under the current farm labor program known as H-2A.

BOSWELL: The second component the creation of a new guestworker program that would replace the H-2A program. That allows long-term stability ensuring that we could access guestworkers into the future. The program provides for a three-year visa term. It provides for employment arrangements on contract or at will, so workers would have flexibility and could migrate and follow seasonal patterns and also employers have the stability of a contract if that’s needed.

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