Immigration bill approaches finish line

By CARRIE BUDOFF BROWN and SEUNG MIN KIM | 5/21/13 11:56 AM EDT Updated: 5/21/13 11:50 PM EDT

The Senate Judiciary Committee will almost certainly pass the sprawling immigration overhaul bill by the end of the week, setting up a floor fight for early June.

Judiciary Chairman Patrick Leahy has been pushing the panel to get its work done, holding a rare Monday markup that stretched into the evening, with additional sessions scheduled each day this week until the bill is finished.

The two biggest wild cards in the final days of the markup are whether Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) wins enough concessions on high-skilled visas to persuade him to vote for the bill and whether Leahy decides to offer an amendment allowing gay Americans to sponsor their foreign-born partners for green cards. The former could boost bipartisan support but the latter could wash it away.

Observers had expected the panel to take up Hatch’s high-tech amendments on Monday, but senators were still negotiating throughout the day. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said he spent the weekend in discussions with Hatch over the Utah Republican’s proposals, which would primarily ease recruitment and hiring requirements on tech firms.

Maintaining bipartisan support has been a critical goal of the Gang of Eight senators who wrote the bill — something that was apparent Monday when Leahy and other Democrats grudgingly accepted a Republican amendment spurred by the Boston Marathon bombing that would end an immigrant’s asylum or refugee status if he or she returned to the home country.

The Gang of Eight has essentially turned back all but minor changes to the measure, maintaining unity as the committee has considered more than 140 amendments.

Despite offering the first extended debate on immigration reform in years, the legislation has competed for attention against a succession of higher-profile stories — first the Boston bombings during the bill’s release, then the spate of Obama administration scandals during the markup. The upshot: a lower-key atmosphere inside the committee room than many would have predicted a few months ago.

“This markup is something we haven’t seen around here in a long time — sitting down, day after day on one of the most important issues in America,” Schumer said.

The mood could change in the coming days as the markup moves to the pathway to citizenship for the country’s 11 million undocumented immigrants, one of the most controversial elements of the bill. Pending amendments range from making the pathway more expansive to eliminating it altogether.

Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) plans to put the bill on the floor when the Senate returns in June, his spokesman said, and the desire to finish up this week before Memorial Day was apparent Monday, when the committee rushed to wrap up debate on enforcement issues and establish new requirements on seekers of asylum and refugee status.

Senators agreed to strengthen the system for tracking visa holders exiting the country — a move aimed at appeasing Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), a key member of the Gang of Eight who criticized the panel for rejecting a similar proposal last week.

The committee also approved a scaled-down measure from Hatch that would establish a biometric exit system at 10 airports with the highest volume of international travelers. Six years after the law goes into effect, the systems would be set up at the next 20 busiest U.S. airports.

“We’d love to move to biometric, but we’ve got to make sure it works,” Schumer said. “This is a good start.”

The Hatch proposal was less ambitious than the amendment proposed last week from Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) that would have required implementation of the biometric system at all points of entry and exit before granting legal permanent status to undocumented immigrants. It failed amid concerns by Gang of Eight members that the requirement would cost too much money and take too long to implement.

Sessions produced what he described as a suppressed 2009 report from the Department of Homeland Security concluding that a nationwide biometric system “can be done right now” and at a lower cost than some members of the Gang suggested. He linked the report to the IRS scandal in which that agency targeted conservative groups.

“[People] don’t trust the government. The IRS can’t be trusted,” Sessions said. “That’s the truth. I’m getting doggoned tired of it.”

The Boston Marathon attacks also continued to play a role in the debate, with the committee approving a proposal that targets refugees and immigrants who receive asylum status. The amendment from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), another Gang of Eight member, would end an immigrant’s asylum or refugee status if he or she returned to the home country.

The family of Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the deceased suspect in the bombings, had received asylum status, but Tamerlan had returned to Dagestan, a province in southern Russia, for six months in 2012 — a time period that has been highly scrutinized by law enforcement investigating the attacks.

Graham said that it would be “very smart” for government officials to inquire as to why refugees and asylum recipients returned to their home countries, unless it was for a “good cause” reason — such as a funeral for a loved one. Under his amendment, the attorney general and the Department of Homeland Security would determine what “good cause” means.

The amendment passed the committee on a voice vote, but it was clear that Democrats — including Leahy — weren’t happy.

“There is an anxiety within the community about what this means,” said Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), who also appeared uncomfortable with the proposal.

Gaby Pacheco, a well-known immigration activist, tweeted after the vote: “We are not happy.”

Another Graham amendment, which would create a government database in order to streamline information-sharing about visa overstays, also passed without objection from senators.

The committee also took up several noncontroversial amendments Monday morning that tweaked some provisions in the bill relating to refugees and asylum recipients.

One proposal split the committee down party lines: a Sessions amendment that would limit the earned income tax credit to U.S. citizens and permanent residents. That failed on an 8-10 vote.

Meanwhile on Monday, the union representing employees who would largely process immigration applications unveiled its opposition to the Senate legislation. In a statement, the National Citizenship and Immigration Services Council outlined several objections to the bill. It largely argued that the Gang of Eight legislation doesn’t fix problems in the current immigration system.

“We need immigration reform that works,” said Kenneth Palinkas, the union’s president. “This legislation, sadly, will not.”

Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/05/orrin-hatch-chuck-schumer-reach-deal-on-high-tech-visa-program-91670.html#ixzz2U2ri64UU

Patrick Leahy: No gay rights amendment [in new Immigration Bill]

By: Carrie Budoff Brown and Seung Min Kim May 21, 2013 11:56 AM EDT

Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) said he will withhold his amendment to the Gang of Eight immigration bill that would allow gay Americans to sponsor their foreign-born spouses for green cards.

Leahy’s announcement followed an emotional debate in the committee.

Including the amendment — a top priority of the gay-rights community — threatened to derail the entire legislation, as top Republican negotiators such as Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said they will not support the Gang compromise if the amendment were included.
“As much as it pains me, I cannot support this amendment if it will bring down the bill,” said Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who called the decision one of the most “excruciatingly difficult” he has made in public office.

Earlier Tuesday, senators rushed to finish a major rewrite in U.S. immigration laws, securing key Republican support for the Gang of Eight bill as it moved closer to a debate on the Senate floor.

Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) announced he would vote to move the immigration bill out of the Judiciary Committee after winning concessions on high-skilled worker visas critical to the tech industry.

And Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) gave the bill a boost by saying he wouldn’t block the measure from a debate on the Senate floor next month, despite demands from tea party groups to throw up procedural roadblocks.

Those developments came as the committee on Tuesday defeated multiple attempts to alter the pathway to citizenship for 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States. The day’s markup proceeded much like the previous four sessions, meaning the Democratic-led panel easily turned back amendments that would have significantly changed the Gang of Eight compromise.

The high-tech visa agreement was one of the last remaining pieces of unfinished business and was added to the underlying bill by a voice vote Tuesday afternoon. Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) spent days working with Hatch, hoping that a deal could persuade the Utah senator to back the bill and boost the bipartisan momentum behind the issue.

“Many things that are there I like, some things I don’t like,” Schumer said of his deal with Hatch. “That’s how compromise is, especially when you’re trying to move a bill as complicated as this.”

Hatch told reporters that if his amendments on high-skilled visas passed, “I will vote to report the bill out of committee.” He warned, however, that he will need to win approval of other amendments involving tax and benefit provisions before he would support the bill on the floor.

By wooing Hatch, Schumer risked alienating Sen. Dick Durbin (D-Ill.), a Gang of Eight member who has opposed the Utah Republican’s amendments. Durbin has been a steadfast ally of labor unions, which have not endorsed the agreement, but Durbin backed the deal, billing it as a “reasonable compromise.”

“We have worked on this with [Hatch] in the spirit of compromise,” Durbin told reporters. “In hope that he will ultimately vote for the bill, we are going to try to support this compromise approach.”

Labor unions aren’t on board with the package, although their objections don’t appear significant enough to pull support for the overall bill.

“Whatever deal has been struck, AFL-CIO has not signed off,” Ana Avendano, assistant to the president and director of Immigration and Community Action at the AFL-CIO, said in an interview Tuesday morning.

The agreement between Schumer and Hatch includes such changes as adding Hatch’s market-based formula for determining the annual increases in the number of H-1B visas, but adding provisions that say the increase won’t happen if the jobless rate in those specific fields is above a certain threshold.

Hatch also wanted to remove language in the Senate Gang of Eight bill that required companies to attest that they would not displace current workers in certain circumstances. The agreement heeds that demand, but also adds a requirement aimed at protecting U.S. workers at companies that often employ specialized foreign workers.

Negotiators added several provisions in a bid to appeal to labor unions — such as mandating government reports every year on high-skilled visa programs and easing portability for employees on H-1B visas. But those changes were not enough to satisfy major unions.

The bill could emerge from the committee with three Republican senators’ votes: Hatch, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Jeff Flake of Arizona. Graham and Flake are members of the Gang of Eight, which drafted the bill.

“We need his help to report the bill from the committee and ultimately to pass it on the floor,” Durbin said of Hatch. “I would be disappointed if at the end of the day, after all the effort and all the compromise that we put into this, if Sen. Hatch didn’t support the bill.”
The landmark Gang of Eight legislation is all but certain to pass the Judiciary Committee, but its prospects on the Senate floor — where the bill is expected in June — are less clear. But at least procedurally, the legislation got a boost Tuesday from McConnell, when he told reporters that he wants to ensure the bill proceeds to the floor.

“With regard to getting started on the bill — it’s my intention, if there is a motion to proceed required, to vote for the motion to proceed so we can get on the bill and see if it we’re able to pass a bill that actually moves the ball in the right direction,” McConnell said.

The Senate’s top Republican, who will have considerable influence in the broader floor debate, also praised the Gang of Eight for making a “substantial contribution” to moving immigration reform along.

The Judiciary panel spent the day defending the bill’s 13-year path to citizenship, rejecting GOP amendments to rein in the program.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) proposed allowing undocumented immigrants to become legal permanent residents but not citizens. He said the bill is unfair to millions of legal immigrants who have followed rules and that it would only encourage more illegal immigration.

“In my view, if this committee rejects this amendment … that decision will make it much much more likely that this entire bill will fail in the House of Representatives,” Cruz said. “I don’t want immigration reform to fail. I want it to pass.”

Graham, Flake and Hatch joined with the Democratic committee members to defeat the Cruz amendment.

Cruz’s attempt to ban undocumented immigrants from receiving means-tested government benefits also failed, 6-12.

Tarini Parti contributed to this report.

© 2013 POLITICO LLC

 

 

 

April 2013

Officials fear new wave of immigration fraud

By Laura Ernde
Staff Writer

G. Thaddeus Gembacz, a retired Los Angeles immigration judge, saw the scam play out in his courtroom countless times.

Law enforcement officials are concerned that unwary immigrants may targeted in a new wave of fraud.

An immigrant would appear seeking asylum after having paid hundreds or even thousands of dollars to a third party for assistance in filling out the paperwork. But there were little or no facts to support the asylum case.

“All the form did was get the person thrown into immigration court,” he said. “From the shadows to the fire.”

With possible changes to immigration laws on the horizon, Gembacz and law enforcement officials in California are concerned about a spike in that type of fraud. The State Bar organized a summit last month to bring together many of the federal, state and local agencies who are trying to combat the problem.

Immigration is one area where non-attorneys are allowed to assist consumers in completing forms, translating documents and submitting forms. But dishonest immigration consultants charge consumers for forms they can get for free and make false promises that extra fees will give the immigrant a leg up in the process, officials said at the summit. Some identify themselves as “notarios,” which, unlike notaries in the United States, are allowed to practice law in some Latin American countries.

Immigrants may fall for dishonest pitches because they come from countries where bribery is common and people are vulnerable, said Rigo Reyes, chief investigator at the Los Angeles County Department of Consumer Affairs.

As the U.S. Congress starts to take up the issue of immigration reform, authorities said they expect more scammers to try to take advantage of immigrants’ strong desire to become American citizens.

“Uncertainty draws out the unscrupulous who prey upon the uninformed, the misinformed and the frightened,” Gembacz said at the summit.“The level and extent of fraud is limited only by the imagination of the perpetrators.”

As a judge, Gembacz said he had little authority to intervene when he noticed consumers being victimized.

The State Bar can take complaints about attorneys who are licensed in California, but the bar does not have jurisdiction over non-attorney immigration consultants, Chief Trial Counsel Jayne Kim said. Law enforcement agencies can prosecute these individuals for crimes, including the unauthorized practice of law and theft.

Unfortunately, much of the fraud goes unreported because immigrants are distrustful of police and fear any contact could lead to deportation, officials said.

Last year, when the federal government eased the immigration rules for some of those who were brought to the United States as children, Attorney General Kamala Harris warned consumers about potential scams.

Los Angeles County, home to many immigrant communities, is unique in having its own Department of Consumer Affairs. Reyes said among the 300,000 calls received per year, immigration fraud is one of the top 10 most common complaints.

The Federal Trade Commission also accepts complaints and enters them in a secure online database used by law enforcement worldwide.

The U.S. Department of Justice has made combating notario fraud a top priority, Assistant U.S. Attorney Rozella Oliver said. But the challenge is getting victims to report fraud. Her agency can’t promise immigrants a path to citizenship in exchange for their cooperation.

Oliver applauded the agencies for starting the dialog. “We are the only ones who can stand up against this new wave of fraud,” she said.

Immigration reform divides Republicans

The party is having an unusually emotional debate on the immigration reform bill, in the Senate and beyond.

By Lisa Mascaro and Brian Bennett, Washington Bureau

May 8, 2013, 6:37 p.m.

 

WASHINGTON — The immigration reform bill crafted by a bipartisan group of senators has deeply split the Republican minority even as lawmakers prepare to take the first votes on the proposal Thursday.

Alabama's Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, a conservative former prosecutor with a courtly drawl, has emerged as the leading opponent of the bill. He is aiming at his GOP colleagues with unusual zeal, and calls out the architects of the bill as, essentially, dishonest.

"Sen. Flake is wrong: It's not a 13-year path to citizenship or welfare," blared one recent missive from Sessions targeting Arizona's Republican senator, Jeff Flake, who helped draft the legislation. "The mass legalization occurs immediately."

Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, another Republican author of the bill, punches back almost daily with his own "Myth vs. Fact" campaign, separating what he considers truth and fiction in the immigration debate — with much of the latter attributed to his fellow Republicans.

"MYTH: This bill will hurt American workers," reads one recent entry fingering Sessions as the perpetrator.

Republicans are not accustomed to this sort of public infighting, especially in the Senate.

But recent elections changed that as the dominance of the GOP's right flank grew. At the same time, its leaders have sought to broaden the party's appeal to minority and female voters, who have recoiled from the right turn.

The immigration debate splits Republicans with an emotional tone not apparent in recent rifts on the budget and other top issues.

A growing coalition of religious and business leaders has rallied around the argument that newcomers bring many benefits to the nation. On the other side, supporters of more restrictive policies see high levels of immigration as a drag on the wages of U.S. workers and a threat to the country's traditional culture.

"Our duty is to represent the people that are here, the people whose parents fought the wars and made America great first," Sessions said Wednesday as he walked through the Senate halls. "And even though we have sympathy for the people who want to come here — and even those who've been here a long time illegally, we have sympathy for them — we need to be sure that what we do does not place our workers, our people who need jobs, at an adverse advantage."

"I believe that's the moral position. I believe that's the right legal position," he said.

The divide within the party will be on full display Thursday as the Senate Judiciary Committee begins the painstaking task of reviewing the 844-page bill and debating amendments, which is expected to take the rest of the month.

The bipartisan proposal drafted by four Republican and four Democratic senators involves complex trade-offs. It would beef up security on the Southwestern

border to prevent future illegal crossings and create new guest-worker programs, particularly for low-skilled labor. Employers would be required to verify the legal status of all workers.

Within 13 years, most of the estimated 11 million people who have entered the country illegally or overstayed visas would eligible for citizenship if they pay back taxes, fines and fees. Some immigrants who work in agriculture or who were brought to this country as minors and now serve in the military or attend college could begin the legalization process sooner.

Hundreds of amendments have been proposed. Some Republicans have proposed changes that would gut the overhaul. Some Democrats would extend immigration rights to gay couples, a move others in their party oppose because it would cost crucial GOP support.

But it is the Republican feud that is the most stark.

The party's leadership has embraced reform, believing it will help Republicans with Latino voters, who have tilted heavily toward Democrats in recent national elections — dramatically so in President Obama's reelection.

"The fact of the matter is, some of our friends are on the wrong side of the line," said one Republican aide, who asked for anonymity to discuss the party tensions. "They get hit with some of the shrapnel."

Sessions has attacked the bill in the same vigorous way he pushed for convictions as a U.S. attorney in Alabama.

Copyright © 2013, Los Angeles Times

Warning: New Reports of USCIS Telephone Scams (Updated 4/8/13)

 AILA InfoNet Doc. No. 12071935 (posted Apr. 8, 2013)

AILA has received reports of a new scam potentially victimizing aliens. According to one report, the individual will receive a call purporting to be from a USCIS officer, who will have certain correct information on the individual, including the individual’s name and address. The caller will state that there is some discrepancy in USCIS records, and ask for confirmation of data, such as an I-94 number, an “A” number, or a visa control number. The caller will then tell the individual that there is a penalty for not clearing up the discrepancy, and that the individual is to send a sum of money via Western Union, to an address the caller provides. Be on alert that your clients may be receiving such calls, and if they do, report them to appropriate law enforcement authorities, which may include the FBI, and to the Federal Trade Commission’s Bureau of Consumer Protection, whose Consumer Sentinel database is accessed by criminal and civil law enforcement authorities worldwide.

Most Californians favor citizenship path for illegal immigrants

USC DORNSIFE / L.A. TIMES POLL

Only 19% of California voters said illegal immigrants should be required to leave. More than half see immigrants as a positive economic force in the state.

By Maeve Reston, Los Angeles Times

March 24, 2013, 5:00 a.m.
 

In a dramatic reversal, California voters now see undocumented workers as a positive economic force in the state — and they overwhelmingly favor allowing a path to citizenship for the millions of illegal immigrants in the country.

Only 19% of California voters in a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll said those in the country illegally should be required to leave the United States. About two-thirds of survey respondents said illegal immigrants should be allowed to stay with eventual citizenship rights. An additional 10% said they should be permitted to remain in this country to work but should not be allowed to apply for citizenship.

At a time when the push for immigration reform has gained momentum in Washington, more than two-thirds of California voters say the current immigration system isn't working and nearly three-quarters favor President Obama's plan to change it, the poll found.

Across different ages and ethnic groups, voters were largely supportive of the measures outlined by Obama and a bipartisan group of senators, including enhancing border security, requiring employers to verify the legal status of their employees and permitting certain undocumented workers to become citizens as long as they pay taxes and fines and are processed behind those who come legally.

Though Obama's association with the proposal made it less palatable to some Republicans, a slender majority of GOP voters in the state said they backed the president's plan — a finding that, along with the drubbing their party took from Latino voters last fall, helps to illustrate why Republicans have grown more comfortable aligning themselves with citizenship for illegal immigrants.

"There's really not much of a debate in California about immigration anymore, and there may not even be a national debate," said Drew Lieberman of Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, a Democratic firm that conducted the poll with the Republican firm American Viewpoint. "It's no longer a partisan or racial issue for Californians."

The state's voters have long held more moderate views on immigration than voters in other parts of the country, in part because of California's burgeoning Latino population. But the poll results illustrated that, even here, views about illegal immigrants have changed notably.

In 2010, when pollsters asked about the effect of illegal immigrants on the California economy, 48% of respondents said their effect was negative and 40% said it was positive. In the latest survey, only 36% said their impact was negative, and 53% said it was positive — a "huge shift," Lieberman said, that spanned all age groups and could not be explained simply by the surging population of Latinos in the state.

Part of what appears to be driving that change are the personal connections that many California voters have formed with illegal immigrants. Latinos were more likely than whites to know one — a majority of Latinos described that person as either a friend or family member — and among all voters who knew any, only 8% said illegal immigrants should be forced to leave the country.

"That tells me that immigration reform is really about la familia, especially for Hispanics, but even white voters can kind of understand that," said Dave Kanevsky, the research director at American Viewpoint.

And that familiarity has affected views across political lines. Dan Schnur, director of the Jesse M. Unruh Institute of Politics at USC, noted that California Republicans live in a much more multicultural society than party members elsewhere, "so the lives they live every day and the people they see are probably the main reason that their feelings are different than their national counterparts'."

That has been the case for 33-year-old Fresno Republican Chris Leake, who said the friendships he developed with undocumented workers in the U.S. and while doing volunteer work in Mexico have made him more inclined to support a path to citizenship.

"I understand why they come up here illegally — I don't agree with it, per se, but I understand why," said Leake, who works in Internet marketing. For many workers, he said, "it was extremely expensive and they ran great personal risk to do it, but they did it because they felt like they needed the income."

Leake, along with 73% of poll respondents, said he would favor the inclusion of a guest worker program in any new immigration package, which he said "would start to solve the problem."

"There's a significant percentage that want nothing more than to come up here, earn money for a time and then go back to Mexico," Leake said. "Instead they stay for years at a time, because it's so hard to get up here in the first place. And that's having devastating effects on their families."

Julie Rapoza, a 54-year-old Democrat from Manteca, said her brushes with illegal immigrants have had the opposite effect. The number of illegal immigrants convicted of crimes, she said, has hardened her view that most undocumented workers should be required to return home — a view that puts her at odds with most in her party.

At the same time, however, Rapoza said she believed illegal immigrants had a beneficial effect on California's economy. "A lot of them do jobs that even unemployed citizens won't do," said Rapoza, who favors an expansive guest worker program. Otherwise, employers "would be paying an arm and a leg to get workers to do it and that would make prices go way up."

Other poll respondents said they felt it would be impossible to deport an estimated 11 million immigrants.

"We don't have any choice," said James Scoville, a 67-year-old independent voter, when asked whether he favored giving illegal immigrants a way to become citizens. "Some of them have been here 20, 30, 40 years and have jobs and houses and everything else. Create a path for them, put them at the bottom of the list. I think that's pretty much the only sensible thing to do."

Some demographic differences were evident: White voters were more likely than Latinos to support stricter border security measures and requiring employers to verify, under threat of fines, that all employees are legal. Still, a majority of Latinos backed both those ideas.

But white respondents were nearly as supportive of a path to citizenship as Latino voters — 81% and 86% respectively. Not surprisingly, Democrats were the most supportive of all. In the survey, 88% said they favored creating that path, compared with 76% of Republicans and 83% of decline-to-state voters.

The poll, which interviewed 1,501 registered voters by telephone, was conducted March 11-17 for the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences and the Los Angeles Times. The survey has an overall margin of error of 2.9 percentage points, with a higher margin of error for subgroups.

maeve.reston@latimes.com

Copyright © 2013, Los Angeles Times

Lack of immigration reform threatens California farmers

Growers have difficulty fielding adequate crews to harvest crops; Washington has a shot this year at providing meaningful relief.

George Skelton
Capitol Journal
4:19 PM PST, February 20, 2013

SACRAMENTO — Except for illegal immigrants, no group has more at stake in the national fight over immigration reform than California farmers.

"It doesn't pay to plant a product if you can't harvest it," notes Mark Teixeira of Santa Maria, who says he had to let 22 acres of vegetables rot last year because he couldn't find enough field hands to gather the crop. "That hurts."

As security has tightened along the California-Mexican border, the flow of illegal immigrant labor into the nation's most productive agriculture state has slowed significantly, farm interests say.

"It's very difficult to find crews compared to three or four years ago," reports Greg Wegis, a fifth-generation Kern County farmer who grows cherries, almonds, pistachios and tomatoes, among other crops.

Last year, Wegis had to cancel a cherry pick for lack of labor. "It cost me several thousand dollars."

"Migrant workers are moving to other states that are friendlier and where there's less likelihood of getting harassed and deported," he says.

"Obviously [the feds] are doing a better job at the border. Which is great. But it definitely is putting the squeeze on our industry."

Any time some demagogic politician bellows about rounding up all the illegal immigrants and shipping them back to their own country, it sends chills up farmers' spines.

Roughly two-thirds of the state's crop workers "are not properly documented," says Rayne Pegg, who heads the federal policy division of the California Farm Bureau.

"I'm not proud to say I hire illegal aliens," says Teixeira, whose family has been farming for five generations. "Everyone has to show 'documentation.' But I don't work for [U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement]. Bottom line, if I have to verify everyone, I'm not going to be able to harvest my crop."

One federal program designed to allow temporary entry of foreign agriculture workers — called H-2A — fails in California because "it's fraught with bureaucratic nightmares," Pegg says. "The federal government doesn't act timely enough for picking and harvesting."
At the harvest peak last September, California had 453,000 agriculture workers, according to the state Employment Development Department. They averaged about $13 per hour. Most pay is based on a work crew's production.

Some farmers, like Teixeira, pay by the hour — $9 in his case, $1 over the state minimum wage. "We also provide health insurance and a 401(k)," he says. And unlike San Joaquin Valley farmers, Teixeira offers a great climate along the ocean. But he still can't find enough hands for his 800 acres.

"Not just any bozo off the street can come in and harvest produce," he says, noting there's a special skill to, for example, cutting lettuce just right.

"Americans won't take these jobs," asserts Dave Puglia, senior vice president of the Western Growers Assn. "Not even the farmworkers raise their own children to take these jobs. It's hard work. And it's not unskilled labor."

California growers need a more reliable source of labor — one they believe would come from immigration reform. Workers would be here legally, able to move freely from farm to farm and able to cross back and forth across the border without worrying about being jumped by some federal agent.

There are an estimated 2.6 million illegal immigrants living in California, nearly one-fourth of the nation's 11 million total. They represent roughly 7% of the state's population. The vast majority — about 1.8 million — are employed.

A recent poll by the Public Policy Institute of California found that 72% of likely voters believe that illegal immigrants who have worked in this country for at least two years should be allowed "to keep their jobs and eventually apply for legal status." Only 25% think "they should be deported back to their native country."

Also, 54% feel that immigrants benefit California "because of their hard work and job skills." Conversely, 39% call them a burden "because they use public services.

Ironically, 60% of Republican voters consider immigrants a burden and only 33% see them as a benefit. That's their long-held view. But many big growers are Republican.
And that's ultra ironic because, nationally, it has been GOP politicians — often representing farm belts — who have blocked and politicized immigration reform.

California farmers "are all over their legislators about not helping them," says Tom Nassif, president and chief executive of the Western Growers Assn. "But they don't punish their legislators for not helping them. They should make it clear that they need their support."
In November, Latino voters made it clear to Republican politicians — including presidential candidate Mitt Romney — that they didn't appreciate their immigration views. And that's why farm groups now see the best opportunity in many years for reform.
"I've said, 'Look folks, it's time to deal with this,'" Nassif says.

After Romney made his dumb, right-wing-pandering comment in a debate about the need for illegal immigrants to "self-deport," Nassif was brought in as one of the candidate's agriculture advisors.

"I told him he was going to be in trouble with Latinos if he didn't do something," Nassif recalls. "I advised him to do something about providing a legal workforce. But he felt better served by being more conservative."

We'll soon see whether Republican politicians have learned the political lesson.
If President Obama and Congress "don't come up with something in the next couple of months, the prospects for this year are not very good," says Pegg, who's wired into negotiations. "We'll be getting into the next election season."

There's momentum now. The issue is ripe for harvest.

george.skelton@latimes.com