05/25/07 How Soon To Reform?

How soon to reform? I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. I've never been a very patient person. Especially in today's fast food, instant technology world, it's hard for me to wait. I often wonder why it takes our government so long to make decisions then I think about 3 people in one car trying to decide where to eat. We all know we are hungry, but what will satisfy all three. So it is with the immigration reform proposal that was announced this time last week. We all know we need it, but what flavor will it wind up? Congressman Doc Hastings reminds us it has a long way to go. HASTINGS: This is the start of a long process and I had breakfast this morning with members of our Washington delegation and the Senators were saying that there are just literally hundreds of amendments that need to be considered over there. So, what does Representative Hastings believe this immigration package need to pass? HASTINGS: It need to be a package that clearly has a strong border security aspect, this bill does; in fact it builds a bit on what was passed in the last Congress but it also needs a component that takes into consideration our agriculture based economy with the guest worker program and that bill does have a component to that. Those are the things that I'm going to look at to see what the final bill has. Some people view this proposal as a blanket amnesty for illegal immigrants. Hastings doesn't see it that way. HASTINGS: No, I don't believe it is in the sense that everybody that is here becomes a citizen of the United States because that's simply not the case in fact the guest worker provisions in here have absolutely no path to citizenship; they are simply guest worker provisions and that is a departure from what has been suggested in the past. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.