Trump's immigration plan raises questions for farmers

Donald Trump’s hard-liner stance on immigration helped him cinch the GOP nomination, but it’s causing concern for farmers in southern Idaho who largely vote Republican but rely on immigrant labor to milk cows, plant crops and harvest food. By MYCHEL MATTHEWS
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Trump pledged earlier in the campaign to round up and deport all of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States — a policy farmers say would be especially disastrous for the Magic Valley dairy industry, home to 73 percent of the state’s 562,000 milk cows.
By some estimates, the Magic Valley dairy industry could lose 2,000 workers in a Trump presidency.
“He talks in a strong tone about border security,” said Bob Naerebout, president of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association. “That’s fine. Border security is a primary issue.” But “with border security must come a strong immigration program, and Trump hasn’t addressed that issue.”
Naerebout, who said he was speaking for himself and not necessarily all the members of his association, raised other questions about Trump’s plan:
How would we replace the deported workers?
How do we legally bring in labor and what would be those numbers be?
Will there be a visa program for year-round ag?
What does the immigration program look like?
Many immigrants come to the U.S. on temporary visas — the H-2A visa in the case of seasonal farm workers. But there is no visa for year-round farm workers, such as full-time dairy workers, so many remain illegally to keep their jobs.
Recently, Trump has appeared to soften on immigration — in a major speech earlier this month, he did not commit to deporting every undocumented immigrant — yet he has continued to vow that immigrants living here illegally would have no path to legal status in his administration.
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton has proposed a path to citizenship for the undocumented workers already here.
The contrasting policies has Idaho’s agriculture industries closely following the presidential campaigns.
“We need workers,” John Thompson, an Idaho Farm Bureau Federation spokesman in Pocatello, said Monday. “People don’t go to dairies to find work. But Hispanics are willing to take those jobs. Our food supply system depends on those people.”
How many is tough to say.
The dairy cattle and milk production industry employs a little more than 5,000 in the Magic Valley, according to the Idaho Department of Labor. But pinning down the exact number of undocumented workers is difficult. Employers are reluctant to talk, and most undocumented workers live in the shadows.
In 2012, the Pew Research Center estimated about 43 percent of Idaho’s farm workers are undocumented. The National Milk Producers Federation says more than half of the nation’s dairy workers are immigrants.
It commissioned a study in 2014 to gauge the consequences of losing immigrant labor. More than 7,000 dairies would close, milk would shoot to $6.40 a gallon, 2 million cows would be culled, and the effect on the U.S. economy could approach $32 billion, according to the report.
Agriculture would not be the only industry impacted by the loss of a significant chunk of the workforce.
At a time when unemployment is low — 3.3 percent in the Twin Falls area — sending 11 million unauthorized workers out of the country would leave as many jobs unfilled. And regional employers are already nervous about a looming job shortage as the local economy continues to grow.
On Thursday, Ethan Mansfield, a regional labor economist for the Labor Department, told Magic Valley economic development leaders that projections show there may be 5,000 too few workers to fill the number of jobs expected to be created over the next decade.
Losing immigrant labor would have deep ripple effects beyond agriculture, said Naerebout, the dairy industry association president. Agriculture is just an entry point to working in the U.S. Once settled, many immigrants go on to do construction, landscaping, hospitality and medical-services jobs.
“Some foreign-born workers stay in agriculture, but their kids go to college and go on to other occupations,” he said. “It’s not a new trend — this is typical and ongoing.”
 
Source: MagicValley
Link: http://magicvalley.com/business/agriculture/trump-s-immigration-plan-raises-questions-for-farmers/article_5b0645ae-24d5-5841-9072-9876cfa7f59b.html
 

Mirá También

Así lo expresó Domingo Possetto, secretario de la seccional Rafaela, quien además, afirmó que a los productores «habitualmente los ignoran los gobiernos». Además, reconoció la labor de los empresarios de las firmas locales y aseguró que están «esperanzados» con la negociación entre SanCor y Adecoagro.

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