María Elvira Salazar: “A concern I have with his amendment, and I will take a further look at it, is that it seems to strike at the heart of…”

“A concern I have with his amendment, and I will take a further look at it, is that it seems to strike at the heart of the AgJOBS provision of this legislation. The AgJOBS provision of this legislation is an essential part of the agreement here that we need to move forward and create a system that will provide the labor we need to work on our farms and ranches across America. In my own State of Colorado, we have approximately 31,000 farms that encompass more than 31 million acres. According to the agribusiness statistics we have, they contribute over $16 billion to the State's economy. We need to make sure we have the labor that is necessary to work out in those fields so that we do not have the destruction we have seen in Colorado and California and in almost every State that is an agriculturally dependent State.”