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10/12/2007
Farm workers in critical short supply
Lots of news these days about illegal immigrants that commit crimes, take candy from babies and steal from our human services agencies.
Perhaps. But overwhelmingly, not so.
An article in Sunday’s L.A. Times revealed an effort by the administration to relax visa regulations to allow more farmworkers in the country legally. The “famously dysfunctional” current program is woefully inadequate to allow California’s farmers to hire – on time - the vast number of laborers they need. Wisconsin farmers have similar problems – though the vast majority of immigrant labor is used on dairy farms as opposed to farms requiring high numbers of workers for harvesting.
Daniel Griswold, director of the Cato Institute Center for Trade Policy Studies, writes often – and convincingly - of America’s immigrant labor situation. This article is an excellent one. The link also contains a good counter-argument as well (bottom of the page).
Griswold says that unlike most stereotypes, “immigrants come to America to work, not to go on welfare or cause trouble. Studies show immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than their native-born counterparts. Department of Justice figures show that just 6 percent of federal and state inmates are noncitizens, less than their share of the overall population. Overall crime rates have been declining since the early 1990s during a time of rising immigration. Meanwhile, welfare reform has made it difficult for immigrants to qualify for most major welfare programs.”
But here’s the key – from another of Griswold’s articles:
“Any immigration reform worthy of the name must reflect the underlying reality that the American economy continues to create hundreds of thousands of new jobs each year for low-skilled workers. Those jobs are being created in retail sales, food preparation, cleaning and janitorial services, for retails salespersons, agriculture, construction, and landscaping and grounds-keeping. Meanwhile, the supply of Americans willing and happy to fill those same jobs continues to shrink. We are getting older and more educated as a nation.”
So – another key – it’s left for local and state officials to force the issue with a wide variety of enforcement legislation – as in the City of Green Bay and Brown and Outagamie Counties. Continuing to force the illegal immigrant issue is critical – because what our economy needs is legal workers – and America is not currently producing them. Historically, we’ve pulled workers from foreign shores to expand the work of this great economic engine - the federal government has got to get its act together on this score. We need (legal!) immigrant workers.
COMMENTS
Good message, we need legal immigrant workers and it can be done. I wonder if our congress have the brains to do so.
Richard Griesser (Fri Oct 12 08:24:28 2007)
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