Patrick Leahy: “today I join, again, with a bipartisan group of Senators to introduce a bill to reform our immigration laws concerning…”

“today I join, again, with a bipartisan group of Senators to introduce a bill to reform our immigration laws concerning foreign agricultural workers. America's farmers are calling for a greater number of legal foreign workers, and an improved system for obtaining those workers. We need to likewise ensure meaningful benefits and protections to the workers who will fill these jobs. I am especially pleased that measures are included to help dairy farmers, who in my home State of Vermont are an integral part of our economy, our history, and our culture. Indeed, it is difficult to think of the Green Mountain State without conjuring up the image of verdant rolling hills dotted with Holstein cows. The provisions in this bill make the H-2A program more workable for dairy farmers by lengthening the time period a foreign worker may remain in the country, providing a process by which an employer can extend the stay of a worker, and by ensuring that workers may ultimately apply for an adjustment to permanent legal resident status. The bill we introduce today goes a long way toward reforming our H-2A visa program.”