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Immigration Crackdown Worries Farmers

Mike

Well-known member
Immigration Crackdown Worries Employers


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Aug 10, 6:24 PM (ET)

By JULIANA BARBASSA

(AP)
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) - Farmers and other employers who rely heavily on immigrant labor said Friday that they could be driven out of business by the Bush administration's plans to crack down on workers whose Social Security numbers do not match their names, and businesses that hire them.

Administration officials said the stepped-up enforcement would begin in 30 days.

"Everyone's very anxious," said Paul Schlegel, director of public policy for the American Farm Bureau Federation. "We're heading into the busiest time of the year for agriculture, so you're going to see a lot of worry from farmers and employers about how you deal with this."

The industry group, which represents 75 percent of U.S. farmers, estimates at least half the nation's 1 million farm workers do not have valid Social Security numbers. Losing them would devastate the industry, particularly fruit and vegetable growers, which rely heavily on manual labor, farmers said.

Other businesses that count on large numbers of illegal workers include construction, janitorial and landscaping companies, and hotels and restaurants.

"We are concerned that the new regulations will result in employers in numerous industries having to let workers go as the economy is facing an increasingly tight labor market," said John Gay of the National Restaurant Association.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez said they were forced to beef up enforcement of existing laws after Congress failed to pass a comprehensive immigration-reform bill.

"We're going as far as we possibly can without Congress acting," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said.

Among other things, employers will now be required to fire employees who are unable to clear up problems with their Social Security numbers within 90 days after being notified. Employers who fail to comply could face criminal penalties.

Recognizing the crackdown could hurt some industries, particularly agriculture, Gutierrez said the Labor Department will try to make existing temporary worker programs easier to use and more efficient.

Chertoff also said he will try to use the department's regulatory authority to raise fines on employers by about 25 percent. Current fines are so modest that some companies consider them a cost of doing business, the agency said.

"It'll just shut us down," said Manuel Cunha, a citrus grower who heads the Nisei Farmers League, a farming group in California's San Joaquin Valley, the nation's most productive region for fruits and vegetables. "It'll just be over if they start coming in here and busting employers. The food chain would fall apart."

Illegal immigrants often give made-up numbers when applying for jobs, though honest mistakes such as the misspelling of a name can also cause problems. Employers say it can take weeks to clear up discrepancies.

"This the stupidest thing our government could do," Cunha said. "They're worried about terrorists, but I've never heard of a farmworker walking across the Arizona desert with a nuke strapped across his back."

Bill Hammond, a member of the Texas Employers for Immigration Reform and the Texas Association of Business, predicted the enforcement would hurt his state's agricultural, hotel and restaurant industries.

"We are deeply disappointed in the administration's decision to punish the American economy because Congress has failed to act," said Hammond, whose group is considered a Republican ally.

Business operators with large numbers of immigrant employees are wondering how to bring their work force into compliance without interrupting production.

"Employers want to obey the law," said Mike Stuart, president of the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, which represents more than 200 farmers. "The question is whether they have the tools to continue operation and obey the law at the same time. That's the catch-22."

Conservative groups lauded the move, saying it would be welcomed by a population tired of watching illegal immigrants and their employers go unchallenged.

"We wish they had done this earlier, but even at this late stage they have an opportunity to regain the confidence and support of the American public," said Dan Stein, president of Federation for American Immigration Reform.

But unions representing immigrant-heavy work forces reacted with anger, including the Service Employees International Union, with 1.9 million members in janitorial and security jobs, and nursing homes and home care.

Eliseo Medina, the union's executive vice president, said the Bush administration was trying to score cheap political points after failing to win support for comprehensive immigration reform.

"The proposed new regulations target people who baby-sit our children, who care for our grandparents, who pick and prepare our food," he said in a statement. "These proposals will intensify a wave of enforcement strategies that have already failed."

---

Associated Press writers Matt Sedensky in Miami and Suzanne Gamboa in Washington contributed to this report.
 

MoGal

Well-known member
These large farmers that are complaining .......... has anyone checked out how much they have received under the farm bill, moneywise??? Some of them aren't as poor as they let on.
 

mrj

Well-known member
Most of us don't have total understanding of the Farm Program and I'm certainly no exception as it directly affects relatively little except for concern about excessive regulations.

However, isn't it fact that those who produce more food and fiber crops generally qualify for more payments when markets are lower than some point of break even returns?

Isn't it true that farming generally doesn't produce large incomes, with around 1.5 to 3.0% return on investment? I just heard that a family with around $43,000.00 income and a couple of kids is considered low income and eligible for free or reduced price school meals, so do the math and see what investment would be required to produce such a minimal income by farming.

Has anyone considered the impact on the food supply and food prices in the USA after we deport all those illegal workers?

Maybe it would make more sense to control the border, THEN address the problem of illegals, many of whom are parents of many little US citizens. That law/rule should be repealed, IMO.

Finally, and probably most eye-opening.......how much of the Farm Program is budgeted for social programs, as contrasted with actual agriculture programs. Everything from Food Stamps & WIC, School and other feeding programs, to Rural Development (minus ag processing plants if they are involved here), to Rural Infrastructure such as water and sewer development in towns and rural communities and cities (which benefit many more people than farmers), Recreation Facilities, and many more of those programs that can hide some real Pork Projects.

mrj
 

Mike

Well-known member
Rich Get Richer on Subsidies
Schwab Duck Club Qualifies for Federal Rice Crop Supports

by Glen Martin

There's not much to mark the place -- a steel gate topped with stylized silhouettes of ducks, a metal sign engraved with the legend, "Casa de Patos." A driveway wends through a grove of oaks. Rice fields stretch to the west, and a thick woodland jungle hugs Butte Creek, the eastern border of the property.
Locals know this 1,550-acre expanse of marsh and cropland owned by stockbroker Charles Schwab as one of the finest duck clubs in the Sacramento Valley.

True, Schwab raises rice on his property, but his primary reason for ownership is duck and goose hunting. He and his guests shoot over the property's permanent wetlands and seasonally flooded rice fields just north of the Butte Sink, a prime area for migratory waterfowl.

But Schwab -- whose net worth is estimated to be $4 billion -- doesn't have to foot the entire bill for Casa de Patos. He gets plenty of financial help in the pursuit of his sport. Last year, he and his family received $564,000 in federal price supports for rice.

Subsidies for agricultural commodities -- rice, cotton, corn, wheat and soybeans -- long have been a staple of the federal farm bill, which is adopted at multiyear intervals.

CLOSER SCRUTINY OF SUBSIDIES
But as Congress debates this year's farm bill -- a behemoth piece of legislation involving expenditures of $170 billion -- commodity payments are engendering increasing controversy, especially when the recipients, like Schwab, are rich.

Although such subsidies are made in the name of family farms, small farms are not their main recipients. In fact, financial tycoons and Fortune 500 corporations reap bales of cash from farm programs. Payments go to farmers residing in such unlikely places as Aspen and Atherton.

Critics of the crop subsidy structure say Schwab is a textbook example of what is wrong with the system.

"There are plenty of family farmers who are struggling and need help in California," said Susanne Fleek, director of government relations for the Environmental Working Group, a Washington, D.C., group that has compiled individual subsidy data for the first time.

"But Charles Schwab is not among them," Fleek said. "I doubt anyone would even call him a farmer. The payments to Schwab are doing nothing to keep land in agricultural production, and that mocks one of the basic tenets of the subsidy program."

A Schwab spokesman said Schwab declined to comment.

Supporters of U.S. farm policy counter that the commodity subsidy programs are necessary to keep land in production, farmers working, food prices low and rural communities healthy.

While California is the nation's biggest agricultural producer, most of the crop subsidies go to Midwest grain farmers. Only 9 percent of California's farmers, mainly large Central Valley cotton and rice growers, get crop subsidies.

RICE PAYS TWICE
Like most of California's 2,500 rice farmers, Schwab gets his rice money from two different U.S. Department of Agriculture programs.

The first pays a subsidy based on production: The more rice produced, the greater the payment. The second program makes up the difference between the loan a farmer typically takes out each year to plant a crop and the price received for a crop.

The programs assure that Schwab's rice will always be sold at a profit. Essentially, his crop is insured by the government -- at zero cost.

Criticism of the current crop subsidy structure is coming from the right as well as the left. "Cases like (Schwab's) are representative of the problem in a nutshell," said Cena Swisher, a senior program director for Taxpayers for Common Sense, a Washington, D.C., budget watchdog group.

"Study after study proves that these commodity payments go to large corporate farms," Swisher said. "You end up with people like Mr. Schwab, people who don't need the money, asking the taxpayer to beef up their bottom line -- or help them hunt ducks."
 

mrj

Well-known member
Mike, I'm not saying everything about the Farm Program is right, and am sure many changes are needed.

But, the rules being what they are at this time, don't those farms produce the crops for which they get the payments? Aren't there people working on the farm who get paid and live in the community? Doesn't that contribute to the good of the rural community as well as to the food base? How are his payments "doing nothing to keep the land in production" if he is getting payments for rice that is grown???? Wouldn't it be conjecture, at best, to say he would be producing it anyway?

Surely there is no shortage of activist groups who want to dismantle the Farm Program and turn our nation into a nation of small co-op farms worked by peasants who might own the bit of land. Nor of those who want redistribution of wealth, excepting their own, of course. I'm not sure that will feed so many people so well as currently. Somewhere in between is where we should be, IMO.

Why are we paying people to raise tobacco, for instance? Or to overproduce some crops, if that still is the case? Do we have any real system for stockpiling and distributing food in time of dire need? We are real good at giving it away, it seems, but we need policies well thought out, easily understood, and transparent in effect on the food supply with more than a token nod to freedom and private enterprise. We need policies that encourage research into all aspects of food production and uses, health benefits, and honest reporting of such. Maybe more separation and transparency of social programs like Food Stamps and other welfare not based on production from the actual farm production aspects.

mrj
 

Mike

Well-known member
If you really would like to know how skewed the U.S. Subsidy program is towards the elite:

http://www.heritage.org/Research/Agriculture/BG1542.cfm
 

mrj

Well-known member
OK, Mike, what do you really want? End all farm programs? End the food/feeding programs? End all the rural infrastructure (water, sewer longterm loans, home loans, who knows what else).

I've never said the program is perfect. I do believe that some of those who decry the current system of farm subsidies to keep food prices low by helping keep US farmers in business won't rest till they have destroyed our system that feeds much of this world, however.

WHile we are at it, maybe we should confiscate and redistribute to 'the poor' all the land owned by the Ted Turner types.....or anyone who has more than you or I do....but some want our land to be redistributed, too. So where should it end? Tax all 'the wealthy' into being 'average' Americans?

BTW, hasn't Pelosi called for taxing interest on some investments at 100%? Where should 'soak the rich' income tax and Estate Tax increases end????

mrj
 

fedup2

Well-known member
53.7% of the money spent by USDA goes to domestic food assistance. Just 19% of USDA expenditures goes to commodity programs. Nutrition programs, such as food stamps and the school lunch program, get 2 1/2 times the funding that is spent on farm subsidies.

Now, if the top 10% of the wealthy are paying 80% of the taxes in this country & the top 10% of producers are receiving the most farm payments, So what? Isn’t it the rich paying the rich? With the taxes most of us pay, the small % that actually goes to these large farms is probably a dollar or two! Not worth bitching about! Back in the days (about 20 years ago), when I used to partake of a little ’juice of the barley’ I’d spill twice that much on the bar! Not worth the argument!
 

fedup2

Well-known member
53.7% of the money spent by USDA goes to domestic food assistance. Just 19% of USDA expenditures goes to commodity programs. Nutrition programs, such as food stamps and the school lunch program, get 2 1/2 times the funding that is spent on farm subsidies.

Now, if the top 10% of the wealthy are paying 80% of the taxes in this country & the top 10% of producers are receiving the most farm payments, So what? Isn’t it the rich paying the rich? With the taxes most of us pay, the small % that actually goes to these large farms is probably a dollar or two! Not worth bitching about! Back in the days (about 20 years ago), when I used to partake of a little ’juice of the barley’ I’d spill twice that much on the bar! Not worth the argument!

:D
 
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