[In light of proposals for a large new
Mexican guestworker program, here is an op-ed of mine from over the weekend on how to
avoid the high cost of cheap labor. -- Mark Krikorian]
An Analyst's View:
It's a Mistake to Depend on Foreign Farm Labor
By Mark Krikorian
The Idaho Statesman, Sunday, July 22, 2001
http://www.idahostatesman.com/news/daily/20010722/Editorials/139874.shtml
Sen. Larry Craig recently introduced bill S. 1161, which would establish a large new
program to import "temporary" farm workers, including an amnesty for illegal
aliens. Meanwhile, the Bush administration is expected to unveil a guestworker plan in
September, while Mexico's foreign minister has included such a plan in a list of demands
he has made of the United States.
The proposals being discussed are deeply flawed and would saddle our country with enormous
problems. Chief among these problems is the high cost of such cheap labor. The importation
of workers with very low levels of education into a modern, high-tech economy imposes a
huge burden on America's taxpayers.
A recent report from the Center for Immigration Studies shows that two-thirds of Mexican
immigrant workers lack even a high school education; as a consequence, two-thirds of
Mexican immigrant families live in or near poverty, 31 percent use one or more major
federal welfare programs (twice the rate of native-born households), and Mexican
immigration since 1987 has added 3.3 million people to the ranks of the uninsured.
What's more, long and bitter experience worldwide shows that guestworker programs and
illegal-alien amnesties always increase illegal immigration, result in permanent legal
settlement, and slow technological innovation in affected industries.
At the same time, past federal policies have encouraged dependence on Mexican labor,
especially by our fruit and vegetable farmers. So imperative as it is to cut illegal
immigration and reject guestworker programs, we owe it to farmers in Idaho and across the
country to offer them an alternative to the current way of doing business.
Fortunately, such an alternative is readily available, if only we reverse an ill-advised
policy from the past.
On Dec. 13, 1979, Carter administration Agriculture Secretary Bob Bergland announced,
"I will not put federal money into any project that results in saving of farm
labor." At the same time, he backed a lawsuit by California Rural Legal Assistance
against the University of California to prevent it from using any tax money to develop
harvest mechanization technologies.
But the case of fruit and vegetable farming calls for a transitional federal partnership
with private industry -- the government fostered farmers' dependence on alien labor,
through past guest worker programs, amnesties, and lack of immigration enforcement, so it
is Washington's responsibility to help farmers extricate themselves from the fallout of
federal folly.
The solution then is to include in the next Department of Agriculture appropriations bill
funding geared toward a revived effort at mechanization of fruit and vegetable harvesting.
Such a program would have several components:
-- Research and development of labor-saving machines and robotic harvesting -- European
producers are far ahead of us in developing cutting-edge robotic technologies for
agriculture, precisely because they don't have the same mass access to cheap labor. There
are huge gains to be made in citrus, lettuce, apples, and other crops.
-- Research and development of "labor-aids" -- technologies which don't reduce
the need for workers but which make the work easier to perform. This would address
widespread concerns about occupational injuries among farm workers and allay the fears of
those who contend that mechanization would be bad for farm workers. But it also would help
farmers, by effectively increasing the number of potential workers, since more people
would be capable of performing the work.
-- Finally, it would be necessary to offer loan guarantees to enable smaller family
farmers to be able to purchase the new equipment or reorganize their operations to
increase harvest productivity. Otherwise, large, better-capitalized operations would be
able to take advantage of these new technologies developed with taxpayer funds to squeeze
their smaller competitors.
The dependence of our horticultural sector on foreign labor is a genuine problem -- but
Sen. Craig's solution would only spawn new difficulties.
Helping agriculture disentangle itself from foreign labor would strengthen the competitive
position of America's farmers, avoid burdening taxpayers with huge new liabilities, and
lighten the load of those who continue to toil in the fields.
**********************************************************************
Mark Krikorian is executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies (www.cis.org), a think tank in Washington, D.C., that
examines and critiques the impact of immigration on the United States.
Mark Krikorian, executive director
Center for Immigration Studies
1522 K Street N.W., Suite 820
Washington, DC 20005
(202) 466-8185 fax: (202) 466-8076
msk@cis.org http://www.cis.org
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