Immigration
reform efforts have renewed support for a simplified guest worker program.
By LEE ROMNEY
Times Staff Writer
But since 2004, the father of three has made the seasonal trek without fear of
arrest, under the auspices of
He then boards an air-conditioned charter bus, complete with movie
entertainment, for the trip to Singh & Sons, near
"If I could stay I would," the 38-year-old Valiente said while
lounging recently in the dormitory courtyard. "But it's better this way.
It's good to be legal."
As border enforcement shrinks the labor force of undocumented field hands and
immigration reform looms in Congress, growers have focused with renewed vigor
on the need for a simplified federal guest worker program.
For Harry Singh & Sons, which imported nearly half the agricultural visa
holders in
Singh & Sons' experience since then offers a close look at a program that
growers and worker advocates alike agree is deeply flawed, yet crucial to
comprehensive immigration reform.
The farm's general manager is Luawanna Hallstrom, whose Punjabi immigrant grandfather,
Harry Singh, founded the company in 1940. Saying the guest worker program has
driven her operation into the red, she estimates that her current annual costs
are 28% higher than they would be without it. But the promise of reform keeps
her going.
"I had always said 'I will never use the program until it's reformed,'
" Hallstrom said. "But the only way we can farm now is because of
it."
Still, it was a rocky start for Singh & Sons in the fall of 2001.
Growers must generally ask the U.S. Department of Labor to certify the
existence of a labor shortage 90 days before foreign workers are needed. But
the harvest was in full swing, so Hallstrom filed an emergency request.
Fortunate to have on-site housing, as required for the program, the company hastily
recruited workers in
But the Department of Labor kicked the application back for revisions, and by
mid-December, Hallstrom said, $2.5 million in tomatoes had rotted in the
fields.
"We were stumbling through it," she said of the program.
"Honestly, it takes a few years to get the hang of it."
Singh's second year in the program brought new difficulties. The law aims to protect
Singh's application proceeded more smoothly in 2002. But in a pinch while
waiting for the laborers to arrive, the company found workers in the
The company violated the law, a judge later ruled in a related injunction, by
not offering the
Although Hallstrom declined to discuss that and other lawsuits in more detail,
she said the program's complexities have caused her to retain both immigration
and labor lawyers. "We learned, and hopefully everyone else will learn
from us," she said.
Still, she said, bureaucratic snafus have persisted. In 2004, the Department of
Labor challenged Singh's ability to require that their workers not be color
blind, something the company says is essential because the tomato crop is
picked in seven shades from green to red. Although Singh eventually prevailed,
the dispute resulted in a 45-day delay, which Hallstrom says caused crop
damage.
This year, the company was abruptly notified there would be a five-week delay
because the Department of Homeland Security, which vets company applications,
had moved its processing center. Hallstrom, a Schwarzenegger appointee to the
state board of Food and Agriculture and a national immigration reform advocate,
enlisted help from the White House, and her applications were quickly
processed. But, she asks, "how many people can do that?"
Still, experience has oiled the annual process, which begins when Hallstrom's
cousin, David Singh, takes a trip through
The excursions draw him away from his job as field manager and are not cheap;
he once stayed a month with 150 workers in a
In rural mountain communities, Singh finds men like Modesto Garcia Antonio, a
diminutive farm hand with a dimpled smile from
Garcia, who wires most of his pay to his wife and three small children, is on
his second stint in the Singh fields. Accustomed to picking corn and tomatoes
in
Workers in the
David Singh "said it was good to come with papers because you earn a good
wage," Garcia, 27, said recently, as the smell of carnitas wafted from the
barracks kitchen and a lone worker played billiards. "It costs a lot of
money to cross alone, and on the news they say it's very hard. Many die."
Hallstrom credits the two-story housing facility, built on company land in the
1980s for $2.5 million, for the farm's continued existence, because without it
she could not use the guest worker program. Five new trailers nearby will soon
house more workers, but for now Hallstrom pays for overflow employees to stay
at
"We are willing to take losses now, because we are buying time," said
Hallstrom, who notes that a number of colleagues have scaled down operations or
moved them south of the border. "On paper, you'd look at it, and say,
'It's not making sense.' But I spent 20 years on this issue, and I'm not
willing to give up."
She continues to push the federal government for a more grower-friendly
program.
Government-mandated wages, she says, should be brought into line with regional
averages for each commodity. And she says growers need more flexibility in
housing and a shortened period during which they must hire qualified locals,
because hiring them in some cases means laying off foreign workers. (Worker
advocates are fighting to maintain the wage and housing requirements.)
For now, others who farm near Hallstrom's land say the program is financially
out of reach for them.
"There is no housing," said Peter Mackauf, general manager of Leslie
Farms, which attempted to build some in
Leslie Farms grows tomatoes, strawberries and other crops in an effort to keep
a year-round workforce but pays mostly minimum wage. If strict enforcement
compelled him to use the visa program, Mackauf said, he would have to raise
prices.
Worker advocates concede that a $9 wage is better than $6.75 and barracks
housing better than the creek beds where some
California Rural Legal Assistance organizer Carlos Maldonado said his group has
received reports from locally hired employees at Singh & Sons who feel
outperformed by young all-male foreign workers. Imported workers, the local
ones contend, have an incentive to work at excessive speeds without complaint:
They want to be hired the following year.
Reforms to the program are not likely to ease all concerns. Still, a proposal
known as AgJobs, part of the broader Senate immigration reform bill, would
streamline Department of Labor approval and scale back the wage rate to the
2003 level while it is studied. It would also allow employers in some cases to
provide a stipend instead of housing.
In return, worker advocates secured the right for guest workers to sue
employers in federal court for contract violations. But their biggest coup, won
by the United Farm Workers, was a program that enables the undocumented
laborers to earn legal status if they commit to some continued work in
agriculture.
The legislative debate is lost on Singh & Sons' visiting laborers. By 4
p.m. on a recent afternoon, they were trickling back from the fields where they
had started work before dawn.
Mud-caked boots were piled in crates outside eight-man dorm rooms. Some workers
tooled through the courtyard on bikes, the day's heat cut at last with a wisp
of breeze. Most chatted quietly on benches and chairs or gathered in front of
the 70-inch television screen.
"It isn't worth it to be a mojado,"
said Moises Parra, 34, referring to illegal immigrants. He learned of the
program on the radio in Altepexi and has worked in it for three years. "We
don't pay rent, water, lights. It's good."
Uniformed security guards patrol the compound, where alcohol is not allowed.
The men are free to come and go on days off, even crossing into
The work is hard: A handful from the Michoacan community of Rancho San Gregorio
couldn't hack it and had returned home, said 20-year-old Luis Saldo Morales.
But the pay and legal status are enticing.
Last year, 15 men came from the rancho. This year, word of mouth swelled the
number to 30.
"None of us had ever crossed before. We never wanted to," said
Morales, who is housed at a motel in town.
"It's almost like we're citizens, joked Morales' 22-year-old brother
Fernando. "For a little while at least."