Saxby Chambliss: “I reclaim my time, Mr. President. Here is the deal. The deal today is that a farmer in America, wherever he may be…”

“I reclaim my time, Mr. President. Here is the deal. The deal today is that a farmer in America, wherever he may be, whether he is in Idaho or Georgia, who goes out and hires workers to come here legally, pays the adverse effect wage rate. In my State, that happens to be about $8.37 an hour right now. In addition to that, they pay for their transportation, they pay for all their consular fees, they provide housing, so the $8.37 an hour is a little bit misleading. It is actually more in benefits than that. The neighbor next door to that farmer, which is that category of blue card worker that you address in your comments, he is paying probably $5.15 an hour to that individual. So the farmer who is trying to be legal is paying a fair wage rate, or paying a wage rate with benefits that is significantly different than the gentleman that he is competing with on the farm next door. What the proposed legislation does is continue that difference. It takes those individuals who are here illegally today and says we are not going to guarantee them the adverse effect wage rate or the prevailing wage rate. We are going to continue to treat them as a second class citizen, and we are going to allow farmers who use them to have an advantage over farmers who use legal workers. All my amendment says is that everybody ought to use legal workers. We ought to give farmers across America the opportunity to choose from a pool of workers to plant, tend, and harvest their crops.…”