the Senate's Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act
Homeland Security Digital Library Blog 2013-07-31
Summary:
The White House has released a report on the Senate's Border Security, Economic Opportunity and Immigration Modernization Act (S. 744). This bipartisan act aims to provide a path to citizenship for unauthorized farm workers through work.
The report cites surveys which describe a picture of the role that illegal immigrants play in the U.S. agriculture industry. It states that the agriculture industry is "hampered by a broken immigration system that fails to support a predictable and stable workforce. Moreover, there continue to be insufficient U.S.-born workers to fill labor needs: of those crop workers surveyed between 2007 and 2009, 71 percent were foreign born." Farmers and ranchers in recent years have reported difficulties securing sufficient workers for critical tasks, and this report lists several examples.