Farmers fear impact of immigrant crackdown

Thursday, August 16, 2007 10:00 AM PDT

Maria Mendez waits for more nectarines to roll past at Cal West Packing Co., Wednesday, in Reedley, Calif. Fruit rotting in fields, unmilked cows suffering in barns, shuttered farmhouses — growers are painting a bleak picture of their industry under new federal regulations that pressure employers to fire illegal immigrants.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Fruit rotting in fields, unmilked cows suffering in barns, shuttered farmhouses — growers are painting a bleak picture of their industry under new federal regulations that pressure employers to fire illegal immigrants.

Although other industries hire workers without proper authorization, growers acknowledge they make up a majority of farm hands in any field. Following the Bush administration announcement that employers who knowingly keep undocumented workers will be held liable, many growers said their businesses would be hard hit.

Particularly vulnerable would be fruit operations that are now hiring thousands of seasonal workers in preparation for the peak harvest months of July through September, they said. The measure is to take effect in mid-September. Andy Casado Jr. is a California farm labor contractor with nearly 800 workers who also grows and packs fruit himself.

‘‘I’m guessing 80, 90 percent of the ag work force is illegal,’’ he said.

The pronouncement doesn’t change the law, it just adds a promise of enforcement that alters the odds of the gamble farmers take whenever they hire a new worker, said Howard Rosenberg, a farm labor management and policy specialist at the University of California, Berkeley Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics. It’s long been illegal to hire and retain anyone not authorized to work in the United States. Farmers take their chances that documents presented by the 1.6 million farmworkers hired around the country are valid or won’t be closely examined, Rosenberg said.

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Until now, employers who received one of the approximately 130,000 letters sent by the Social Security Administration telling them a worker’s identification number didn’t match government records didn’t fire the employee, as the discrepancy could result from a misprint, or woman’s failure to inform the government of her new married name.

Now these so-called ‘‘no-match’’ letters will be accompanied by a letter from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, reminding employers of their obligations under immigration law.

Farmers will now ask the employee to fix the discrepancy. If the difference isn’t explained in three months, the employer must fire the worker or face criminal liability.

Think tanks that oppose illegal immigration praised the move, hoping it will turn off the job magnet has attracted new immigrants. Other vocal opponents of illegal immigration, such as Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, said his optimism was tempered with a wait-and-see attitude.

‘‘It’s not that we don’t trust them, it’s just that well, we don’t trust them,’’ he said of the Bush administration. ‘‘It seems to me that many of these tough on illegal alien programs have existed for some time and this may simply be cover for the White House to bring back their amnesty push next year.’’

Farm labor experts like Rosenberg believe much of the provision’s impact hangs on the vigor and resources the government allocates to its implementation.

But farmers’ concerns are justified, he said.

‘‘The risks (of hiring illegal immigrants) have been getting higher, and if the pronouncements that accompanied this rule bear out, then they become higher yet,’’ Rosenberg said. To farm workers, it’s just another effort by the government to look good at the expense of the people who hold down the hardest and lowest paid jobs in the country.

‘‘There’s always more pressure on the immigrant community,’’ said farm worker Gerardo Reyes of Immokalee, Fla. Farmers and farmworkers agreed raising the stakes could hurt everyone.

‘‘We’re going to face firing employees whether the documents are wrong or right with no one to fill those positions,’’ said J. Allen Carnes, president of Winter Garden Produce in Uvalde, Texas.

Carnes said he’s already suffered worker shortages during the last few years because of tightened border security. Steve Pringle, legislative director for the Texas Farm Bureau, said the administration’s move forces employers into an impossible position.

‘‘Either you obey the law and you watch your crop rot in the fields or you attempt to try to get the crop out and run the risk of being hit by the federal government,’’ he said.

Because tighter enforcement could hurt agriculture, Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said the Labor Department would work to streamline the existing temporary worker program, which allows farmers to apply for foreign workers.

But farmers were skeptical of what could be achieved under a program they consider bureaucratic and expensive.

Casado, the California contractor, recently took a seminar on the program.

‘‘I learned a lot, but one of the things I learned is that I can’t do it myself,’’ he said.

About 70 growers gathered this week in Fresno, deep in California’s agricultural Central Valley, to discuss options, share doomsday scenarios, and shake their heads in frustration.

The state picks, packs and ships about half of the vegetables, nuts and fruits grown in the U.S. every year. Growers rely on 225,000 year-round employees, and twice that many in summer.

Keeping track of people who presented questionable papers weeks or months earlier in an industry where there’s much worker mobility is beyond the scope of what farmers should be expected to do, they said.

‘‘We’re being charged with having to be the policing agent,’’ said Russel Efird, who grows almonds, walnuts, grapes and fruit and heads the Fresno County Farm Bureau. ‘‘This will make it very hard for us to do our jobs.’’