The agricultural industry is heavily dependent on immigrant labor, and it is widely accepted that many – perhaps most – of their immigrant workers are here illegally (I have seen estimates of up to 70%). Western Growers Association has been way out in front of the political effort to ensure an ample supply of labor during the critical few weeks of harvest time. It describes itself this way: “Western Growers’ members grow, pack and ship nearly one half of the nation’s fresh fruits, vegetables and nuts.” The association has membership in California and Arizona. On 11/20 the CEO wrote a column in the Wall Street Journal criticizing the federal no-match program, which a court blocked in October, and advocating AgJobs, which was inserted in the immigration reform bill expressly to address the west coast farm industry.
Here is the text of Tom Nassif’s column:
In the midst of the combustive debate over immigration reform, we in agriculture have been forthright about the elephant in America’s living room: Much of our workforce is in the country illegally — as much as 70%.
Faced with the option of economic ruin, as hundreds of millions of dollars worth of our livelihood rots in the fields, or the embrace of a fatally flawed immigration system, our industry and farm families opt to survive. Who wouldn’t? For those who have a 10-20 day harvest window to make or break their entire business year, government promises to fix the system don’t work. We can’t wait for rules to change. We need reform and we need it now.
Author: Peter Rousmaniere
Immigrants in Arkansas
Arkansas businesses such as Tyson Foods, ministers and others have founded The Arkansas Friendship Coalition to promote the role of 100,000 immigrants in the state’s economy and offset anti-immigration initiatives.
For Arkansas there is an in-depth analysis of the immigrant population, prepared by in-state and national specialists in immigration studies. Among the findings: (1) Arkansas experienced the greatest growth (48%) in Hispanic immigration of any state during 2000-2005. (2) One quarter of immigrants are engaged in food processing (beef and poultry), and (3) in 2004-5, half of the 100,000 immigrants were undocumented.
Most immigrants, the study reports. As employed in the manufacturing sector, which includes meet processing. Overall, for the past ten years the state has experienced a reduction in manufacturing employment, and without this new source of worker the report estimates that manufacturing would have declined further.
Neighboring Oklahoma enacted anti-illegal immigration legislation, The Oklahoma Taxpayer and Citizen Protection Act of 2007 [HB 1804], in May. It denies illegal immigrants state identification, and requires all state and local agencies to verify citizenship status of applicants before authorizing benefits. The law also require public employers to enter job applicants into an electronic immigration database to verify legal status.
$300 billion a year in worker remittances back home.
For 38 countries remittances accounted for more than 10 percent of the gross domestic product. Only about a third of the money, $96 billion, comes from the United States, with large sums also originating in Europe and the Middle East. These and other observations from an article in the New York Times.
The article in full:
THE money flows in dribs and drabs, crossing borders $200 or $300 at a time. It buys cornmeal and rice and plaid private school skirts and keeps the landlord at bay. Globally, the tally is huge: migrants from poor countries send home about $300 billion a year. That is more than three times the global total in foreign aid, making “remittances” the main source of outside money flowing to the developing world.
Surveys show that 80 percent of the money or more is immediately spent, on food, clothing, housing, education or the occasional beer party or television set. Still, there are tens of billions available for savings or investment, in places where capital is scarce. While remittances have been shown to reduce household poverty, policymakers are looking to increase the effect on economic growth.
Some migrants, for instance, send home money to savings accounts at small bank-like microfinance institutions, which use the resulting capital pool to lend to local entrepreneurs.
People who track remittances have been starved for basic data. It is difficult to say exactly how much money is flowing and even harder to say where to, exactly. Sums large and small travel informally, through the mail or in the care of friends. The World Bank, the main tally keeper (in the form of a careful economist named Dilip Ratha), only counts transfers recorded by central banks. Last year’s sum came to $208 billion. Bank officials estimate that the global total is about 50 percent higher — $300 billion or more.
Last month, the International Fund for Agricultural Development, an arm of the United Nations, and the Inter-American Development Bank released a set of numbers culled from additional sources, including private survey data and records of money-transfer companies. (The research was led by Manuel Orozco of the Inter-American Dialogue, a Washington research group.)
The new study’s estimate of the global total, $301 billion, is about the same as the World Bank’s. But when it comes to specific countries, the two organizations vary widely.
The World Bank, capturing central bank data, said southern African countries received about $1.4 billion in 2006. The new study said $4.5 billion. The World Bank puts Brazil’s intake at $3.5 billion; the new study reports $7.4 billion. Depending which numbers you use, Russia received either $3.3 billion (old) or $13.8 billion (new). The World Bank data has been published annually, while the new study, part of a larger project, has not been widely reviewed.
By any accounting, the amounts involved are big and flow worldwide: migration truly is global. The new study found that 60 countries received $1 billion a year or more last year. In 38 countries, remittances accounted for more than 10 percent of the gross domestic product. Mr. Orozco estimates that only about a third of the money, $96 billion, comes from the United States, with large sums also originating in Europe and the Middle East.
Donald F. Terry, an official at the Inter American Development Bank, which helped sponsor the study, has campaigned for years to publicize the importance of remittances. His policy agenda includes reducing the costs of sending money and helping migrants open bank accounts, especially back home, so they can gain access to mortgages and business loans.
“Putting it out there this way increases the level of policy interest,” Mr. Terry said. “What’s stunning is how critical remittances are in almost every developing country in the world.
Illegal immigrants’ Emergency Care Is Limited by U.S. Rule
Per the NY Times, under a limited provision of Medicaid, the national health program for the poor, the federal government permits emergency coverage for illegal immigrants and other noncitizens. But the Bush administration has been more closely scrutinizing and increasingly denying state claims for federal payment for some emergency services, Medicaid experts said.
The article goes on to say that in the wake of stricter federal rules, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut and 20 other states have extended full Medicaid coverage, using only state money, to some immigrants who do not qualify for federal aid. Under federal law, proof of citizenship is required for full Medicaid coverage, but not for emergency coverage.
But some states with growing immigrant populations, like Georgia and Arizona, have themselves moved to limit coverage under emergency Medicaid, leading to intense opposition from immigrant health advocates.
The full article:
Continue reading Illegal immigrants’ Emergency Care Is Limited by U.S. Rule
Analysis of farm labor economics in California
Philip Martin of UC Davis prepared a fresh analysis of labor economics in California’s produce growing industry. He challenges the assertion that there is a labor shortage, which assertion in behind the move to get AgJobs passed by Congress. I have cited Martin’s work in the past. Below is a summary of his new study from the Center for Immigration Studies, which is opposed to granting rights to illegal immigrants.
The study is called Farm Labor Shortages: How Real? What Response?
# Production of fruits and vegetables have been increasing. In particular, plantings of very-labor-intensive crops such as cherries and strawberries have grown by more than 20 percent in just five years.
# The average farm worker makes $9.06 an hour, compared to $16.75 for non-farm production workers.
# Real wages for farm workers increased one-half of one percent (.5%) a year on average between 2000 and 2006. If there were a shortage, wages would be rising much more rapidly.
# Farm worker earnings have risen slower in California and Florida (the states with the most fruit and vegetable production) than in the United States as a whole.
# The average household spends only about $1 a day on fresh fruits and vegetables.
# Labor costs comprise only 6 percent of the price consumers pay for fresh produce. Thus, if farm wages were allowed to rise 40 percent, and if all the costs were passed on to consumers, the cost to the average household would be only about $8 a year.
# Mechanization could offset labor higher labor costs. After the “Bracero” Mexican guestworker program ended in the mid-1960s, farm worker wages rose 40 percent, but consumer prices rose relatively little because the mechanization of some crops dramatically increased productivity.
# Labor-saving mechanization can be difficult for one farmer, since packers and processors are usually set up to deal either with hand-picked or machine-picked crops, but not both. Government has a key role to play in facilitating mechanization.
Case study of work injured immigrant who was deported
File a Claim, Get Deported? A new U.S. Census report says that almost one in five people living in the United States speaks a language at home other than English. For a while, Edgar Velazquez was one of them. But that was before the native of Chiapas, Mexico, was deported to his home country.
This is a column I have written for Risk & Insurance Magazine.
His misadventures in workers’ comp land while he was in the United States serve as stark reminder of the plight of illegal workers who are injured on the job.
Of the 37.5 million foreign-born persons living here, 12 million are without documentation. Before U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement deported him in August, this 22-year-old from a mountain hamlet was one of 7.5 million people working here illegally.
I’ve followed his story through WorkCompCentral’s online daily news service and The Providence Journal. What he’s gone through speaks volumes about the perils of keeping 5 percent of our workforce in legal limbo.
In 2005, Velazquez paid a transporter –a “coyote”–to help him sneak into the United States. He got to Rhode Island, where his uncle helped him find work in landscaping. According to the Washington, D.C.-based research group the Pew Hispanic Center, one-quarter of that industry is staffed by illegals.
On March 31, 2006, while employed by Billy G’s Tree Service in Warwick, R.I., Velazquez was cutting a tree limb when his chainsaw kicked back and slashed his face. Velazquez says company owner, William Gorman, refused to give him aid; so he and a co-worker called 911. Surgeons performed emergency reconstructive surgery.
Velazquez’s wounds have largely healed, but he suffers from permanent nerve damage. His situation, although tragic for him, provides a case study for the rest of us.
Illegal workers often have no idea about their workers’ compensation rights. Hospitals and clinics typically assign them a free care account due to their lack of money. It’s not unusual for an illegal to take months to recover from a serious injury before realizing that they can submit a claim. That’s the path Velazquez took in early 2007, when he retained a lawyer.
On Aug. 2, the lawyer was in a Providence courthouse when ICE arrested Velazquez outside. After time in ICE detention centers in Massachusetts and Texas, Velazquez was dumped on the Mexican side of the border.
Gorman denies that he informed on Velazquez, but he’s got his own problems: He had no workers’ comp insurance. Hiring illegal workers and skipping workers’ comp is a toxic cocktail throughout the country. The state is now asking Gorman to pay up to $1,000 for each day he operated his business without cover.
With no uninsured injured worker fund in Rhode Island, that means Velazquez’ only resource may be Gorman’s liability policy. But how can Velazquez sue Gorman from Mexico?
That question is being answered at two levels. Global Workers Justice is promoting better access to American courts for workers like Velazquez. Most states grant illegal immigrants employment rights. But the plaintiffs have to be here to state their case.
As for Velazquez, in September, through the intercession of Nevada Senator Harry Reid, ICE permitted him a brief “humanitarian” return the to United States. Velazquez’s lawyer is also pressing the workers’ comp claim against Gorman.
Whether Velazquez will ever be fairly compensated remains to be seen. But his case is just one of what must be many, and I estimate that half of them go unreported. For those who do report cases, the frequent lag in their reporting and the deportation risk present them with obstacles as dreadful as Velazquez’ chainsaw.
Spitzer waffles on driver licenses for illegal immigrants
The New York Times in an editorial today says that New York Governor Sptizer, who announced plans to issue drivers licenses to qualified illegal immigrants, has retreated, apparently in response to pressure from the Department of Homeland Security. The new plan is very complicated, providing some ID for illegal immigrants but in an attention grabbing way, as the editorial describes:
Governor Spitzer Retreats
Gov. Eliot Spitzer has confronted the most intense public criticism of his political career — and caved. Not so long ago, Mr. Spitzer was doing the right and brave thing, planning to offer driver’s licenses to qualified but undocumented immigrants. The plan was inherently fair and would have made the state and its roads safer. Unfortunately, it also made Mr. Spitzer the target of some very nasty rhetoric from his political opponents, while his allies offered mostly weak-kneed support.
Continue reading Spitzer waffles on driver licenses for illegal immigrants
Illegal immigration and Dem-Rep competition
The Washington Post last week ran an article on how illegal immigration has become a political football. “GOP Finds Hot Button in Illegal Immigration” focused on a special election for Congress in the Lowell, MA, area of Massachusetts – typically very Democratic. The race was won (after the article was printed) very narrowly by the Democratic candidate, despite her being 10 ahead only a few days before the election. According to the article, “On immigration, the Republicans hold a 49 to 44 percent lead.” Elsewhere last week, Republican senators blocked the passage of the Dream Act, which would permit children of illegal immigrants who themselves are illegal residents from gaining citizenship through military service. A Senate procedural vote requiring 60 yes votes ended 52 yes, 44 no. The military today provides for accelerated citizenship to legal residents; the Dream Act would have opened doors to the illegal population.
The article in full, October 23 07
Continue reading Illegal immigration and Dem-Rep competition
Don’t get a work injury if you live in Arizona…
…and are an illegal immigrant. It can also be very costly to the employer. Apparently businesses are penalized now, in fact can be put out of business, if they hire illegal immigrants, but workers comp benefits still apply to these workers. Some in the legislature aim to strip workers comp benefits from illegal workers.
Illegal immigrants who have jobs in Arizona are covered under the state’s workers’ compensation system, and businesses want it to stay that way — despite a new state law that can put them out of business for hiring undocumented workers.
This from the Phoenix Business Journal….
If illegal labor were excluded from the state’s workers’ comp umbrella, that could leave injured migrant workers without care and create a morass of legal troubles for businesses that unlawfully employ illegal immigrants.
“It definitely opens up an entire can of worms, and employers are definitely aware of that right now,” said Abbe Goncharsky, an employment attorney with the Phoenix law office of Lewis and Roca LLP.
There were efforts this year at the state Legislature to exclude illegal immigrants from workers’ comp benefits, and the contentious issue is expected to come up again in 2008
Bring back AgJobs? 500,000 workers may be affected
One of the casualties of the immigration bill debacle last summer was the failure to pass a specially crafted provision to cover farm workers. According to the New York Times, the farm industry wants Washington to relax worker protections for the exiting H-2A visa program, that covers only 50,000 immigrant workers, compared to the well over 500,000 illegal workers said to be employed in farm work. The Times wants the AgJob provision of the immigration bill passed.
Here is a description of AgJobs’s impact on illegal farm workers:
AgJOBS provides a one-time program under which farm workers who can demonstrate a
substantial past commitment to agricultural work in the U.S. can, by meeting specific future work requirements over a period of 3 to 6 years, qualify for adjustment to permanent resident status. It is estimated that about 500,000 farm workers will be eligible under the program. This adjustment of status program will enable full-time, permanent farm workers – the most valuable workers on many farms – whose jobs are not eligible for the H-2A program, to earn legal status. It will also provide a transition period during which employers not now using the H-2A program can construct housing.
The TImes’ editorial includes:
The main legal route for agricultural guest workers — the H-2A visa program — has serious problems that need fixing. But the government, which has solicited recommendations from farm groups on how to streamline the program, must not let industry lobbyists dictate the changes. Doing so could erode an already thin layer of protections for workers who do some of the country’s most punishing, backbreaking jobs.
Farm lobbyists have sent the administration a wish list of regulatory and administrative changes that they say will lift unduly cumbersome barriers to participating in and expanding the H-2A program. That program now hires about 50,000 people a year, about 2 percent of the agricultural work force. But the barriers are there for good reasons. They require farmers to give guest workers free housing and decent wages, and to take certain steps — like running newspaper ads — to prove they have tried to hire Americans first. The industry wants to relax those hiring requirements, to charge workers for housing, to pay them less and to widen the range of jobs they do to include poultry processing and meatpacking.
Labor advocates who have spent years fighting for basic protections for farmworkers believe, with good reason, that the industry is looking to exploit the immigration crisis. There is a better way.
Congress should pass a bill known as AgJobs, a bipartisan measure with broad support in the farm industry and among farmworker organizations. It streamlines the H-2A program, but also includes a path to earned citizenship for farmworkers, an important step to curb exploitation in an industry overwhelmingly made up of easily fired, easily abused undocumented workers. Its carefully negotiated compromises are just the kind of approach to immigration reform the country needs — not the heavy-handed half-measures that make up the current shambles of federal policy.