A broad coalition of farm advocacy groups is throwing their support behind a proposed Senate immigration bill, offering farmers the best chance they’ve had in years to seriously reform farm labor in the United States
For the past several years, immigration has been a major issue. In several states, legislatures have passed tough new immigration laws designed to curb the influx of illegal immigration. Places like Alabama, Georgia, and Arizona have seen a massive decrease in available farm labor in the wake of their new laws and have lost tens of millions of dollars in the process.
The proposed immigration reform, however, would potentially increase farmers’ access to vital labor. The bill, in addition to creating more opportunities for citizenship, would expand the federal work visa program, empowering the US Department of Agriculture to manage a program employing up to 300,000 non-citizen workers.
While the bill is still moving its way through Congress, groups like the Farm Bureau and the National Farmers Union have thrown their political clout behind it, hoping that the failure of the farm bill will not be repeated with immigration reform.
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Written by: Justin Ellison / Farm Plus Staff Writer