Political Quotes

“Mr. Chairman, as a Committee on Agriculture member, I too have heard the concerns of agriculture employers who call the current H-2A guest worker program unworkable and thus understand that my colleagues want to give the growers a program that works. I agree that growers need some relief and must be able to depend on a reliable source of foreign workers. But the Pombo-Chambliss amendment takes the completely wrong approach. We should not create an entirely new, untested, massive guest worker program when we have a program already. Let us fix the H-2A program instead. The Pombo-Chambliss amendment creates an institutionalized program which could bring up to 250,000 aliens into our country per year. The Goodlatte compromise amendment is based on hearings held on the H-2A program in both the Committee on Agriculture and Committee on the Judiciary. It will cap the number of visas available for H-2A workers at 100,000. Seventeen thousand guest workers are currently coming into the United States under the H-2A program. That allows for a very substantial increase. It pays for workers' way home, it protects American workers by making sure that guest workers do not adversely affect wages and working conditions of American workers, and it will also require that growers actively recruit for U.S. workers before they can get guest workers.”