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by Amy Beth Graves

At last count, legislation to overhaul the United States’ immigration laws was more than 350 single-spaced pages and had more than 40 proposed amendments.

"They’ve been trying to pass immigration reform for the past 10 years. The last time we had a major reform was in 1986 -- it’s past due," said John Wargowsky, Ohio Farm Bureau Federation’s (OFBF) director of labor services and policy.

Citing an urgent need to ensure an adequate labor force for American agriculture, the American Farm Bureau Federation Board of Directors voted to strongly support the Senate's bipartisan compromise immigration reform proposal earlier this month.

As of press time, the Senate was expected to vote in mid June on the bipartisan agreement reached by the Bush administration and lawmakers last month. The House has not indicated when it might take up the issue.

The comprehensive Senate proposal would grant temporary legal status to undocumented workers as long as they paid a fine and underwent criminal background checks, said Adam Sharp, OFBF’s senior director of national and regulatory affairs. The estimated 12 million undocumented workers could then apply for residence visas and eventual citizenship.

The proposal also would set up a guest worker program that would allow workers to come to the United States for up to two years.

The bill is not without a large amount of criticism, including that it would allow amnesty to illegal workers. But the American Farm Bureau Federation does not feel that the bill provides amnesty to undocumented workers, said Paul Schlegel, the organization’s director of public policy. Under the Senate bill, illegal workers would have to pay thousands of dollars in fines and back taxes.

"I don’t think there is any one provision in the bill that’s not under attack," Schlegel said. "Farm Bureau does not support amnesty. We do think the provision, however, does deal with a very difficult problem with a practical, effective way for farmers."

In order to secure an agricultultural labor force, Farm Bureau supports the bill moving forward. But the organization has concerns about a number of provisions in the legislation, according to Sharp.

Agriculture is particularly interested in parts of the bill that would establish "Z" visas for undocumented workers and "Z-A" visas for agricultural workers, make changes to the H-2A agricultural guest workers program and set up a new electronic verification system for workers.

The Senate bill would allow undocumented workers to "come out of the shadows" and apply for the Z visa, which would allow them to continue to work in agriculture and other fields, Sharp said. They would have to pay thousands of dollars in fines, have a clean work record and pass a criminal background check.

The Z-A visa was designed specifically for agriculture and would have lower fines and other incentives for those who work in agriculture. The concern is that once the workers gain legal status that they would switch from agriculture to other industries such as construction, Sharp said.

"We just don’t know yet which of these visas will be more appealing or workable for the ag industry," he said.

There’s also concern that a reformed H-2A agricultural worker program could result in additional legal liabilities and require employers to pay higher wages, Sharp said.

"The H-2A program is not being improved," he said. "It’s going to become more expensive and cumbersome."

The guest worker program, which requires "Y" visas, also could result in higher costs such as a requirement that employers pay health care costs, Sharp said.

Another area of concern is a proposed electronic verification system for all new employees, which could also be cumbersome and expensive for employers, critics said. Employers would be required to make sure that a new employee’s vital statistics matched government databases. Sharp said the three-year timeline to implement the new system is too tight and a pilot program had "significant errors."

"This system has to be workable for people. It’ll cause new work for every employer, and they don’t want to feel like an IRS type entity will be coming after them if the data they got from the new employee doesn’t match the government’s," Wargowsky said.

Ohio Farm Bureau has been working on getting members involved in the immigration debate by issuing "action alerts" to get them to write or meet their lawmakers to talk about how immigration reform is vital for agriculture.

How the final immigration bill will turn out is hard to predict, Sharp said.

"The Senate is only the first step. Last year the Senate barely passed an immigration reform bill only to have it die in the House," he said.

Wargowsky warned that if Congress doesn’t pass a bill, the Department of Homeland could implement changes that would make it hard for the agriculture industry to have an adequate and legal work force. AFBF economists estimate that up to $9 billion a year in production is at risk if Congress fails to change the nation’s immigration laws.

"We can’t wave our hand and find people to do those jobs that Americans don’t want to do," Wargowsky said. "We need to pass a workable immigration reform bill that will have a positive affect on agriculture for both the short and long term."