Keeping workers on the farm

FIGHTS OVER immigration are often angry battles about who belongs in the country and who doesn't. But for many businesses, the more nagging issue is who will fill some of the country's most physically demanding jobs, from picking fruit to slaughtering hogs.

This employment issue deserves much more attention and action than it is getting.

If Congress had passed comprehensive immigration legislation, businesses would have had a legal way to hire more immigrant workers. Instead the country has become the unintentional site of a policy experiment: What happens when federal officials step up immigration raids but don't create more legal ways to hire guest workers?

Among the answers: production slows and fruit rots because there aren't enough workers to harvest crops. In North Carolina, The New York Times recently reported, federal immigration raids have caused workers who are apparently undocumented to flee. Then companies scramble to find replacements. Smithfield Foods, a pork processor with corporate offices in Virginia, had to bus in workers from South Carolina to work in its North Carolina plant. But training new workers is a challenge, and worker turnover is high.

Rather than this patchwork approach, what's needed is a single federal solution. The Bush administration is trying to speed up processing for an existing and cumbersome agricultural guest worker program, which requires farmers to prove that no Americans want the jobs they're offering.

A better approach is the so-called "AgJOBS" bill, filed in Congress by Senator Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat. A similar bill has been filed in the House. The bill would overhaul the country's existing agricultural guest worker program by speeding up processing. The bill would also grant temporary legal status to undocumented workers who have been in this country for two years. These workers would be allowed to travel domestically and abroad, and could eventually apply to become permanent residents.

An estimated 70 percent or more of farm workers are in the country illegally, according to the National Council of Agricultural Employers, which supports AgJOBS.

"The agricultural industry would grind to a halt without immigrant farm workers," Senator Edward Kennedy said in a statement. A cosponsor of the bill, he praises it for having the joint support of workers and companies.

The bill also has bipartisan support. Its Republican cosponsors include John McCain of Arizona, Mel Martinez of Florida, and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania.

Whatever their legal status, workers from other countries will keep harvesting crops and processing food in the United States. Immigration law needs to create more ways to hire them legally.