House Judiciary Committee to consider E-Verify

On Sept. 15, the House Judiciary Committee will take up and consider Chairman Lamar Smith’s Legal Workforce Act legislation (H.R.2164) mandating that all U.S. employers use the E-Verify system within three years, according to the American Nursery & Landscape Association (ANLA).

ANLA, along with partner seasonal and agricultural employer organizations, have sounded the alarm over the impact of E-Verify without labor supply solutions for U.S. agriculture and seasonal employers. Government and private estimates suggest that upwards of 75 percent of hired farm workers lack proper work authorization, and would be screened out by E-Verify, leading to a national crisis much like that experienced in the state of Georgia when a state-level immigration bill was passed there earlier this year. Georgia growers have already estimated labor shortages as high as 30 to 50 percent, and crop losses that could exceed $300 million in 2011 alone. 

ANLA is particularly concerned that the H-2A and H-2B “safety net” programs intended to give agricultural and seasonal employers the tools to ensure a legal workforce have been shredded by regulatory abuse at the hands of a hostile US Department of Labor. In the past year, for example, H-2A employer appeals of arbitrary DOL application denials have risen from a long-term average of 18 per year, to 442 in 2010 alone.

The Judiciary Committee also plans to separately consider Chairman Smith’s “American Specialty Agriculture Act,” H.R. 2847, which would attempt to improve the existing H-2A program. While the bill has some attractive features, ANLA and the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform (ACIR) believe that the H-2A structure is fundamentally flawed, and do not feel that H.R.2847 would create a program capable of either regularizing the status of, or replacing the unauthorized workforce. 

Representative Dan Lungren (R-CA) is preparing to introduce an alternative program, the Legal Agricultural Workforce Act, which would establish a new, more market-oriented and flexible program. It is not clear whether Lungren will offer an amendment in the upcoming Judiciary Committee debate, or if and when E-Verify comes to the House floor. ANLA and ACIR believe that the Lungren approach offers a better framework for a 21st Century agricultural worker program. 
This is a deadly serious legislative battle that could shape the green industry’s labor and legal workforce options for years to come.

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