A complete overhaul of the
American agricultural guest worker program is a major part of a House of
Representatives’ plan to fix the immigration status of young people involved in
the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals Program (DACA). The DACA program is
currently tied up in an immigration reform battle on Capitol Hill. A DTN report
says Virginia Republican Bob Goodlatte, as well as three other Republicans,
introduced the “Securing America’s Future Act.” The bill has several provisions
in it, including an end to the green card program and it claims to reduce
overall immigration by 25 percent a year. At the same time, the bill increases
visas for skilled workers, as well as agricultural workers too. The bill would
also scrap the current H-2A program and replace it with a new one that’s called
H-2C. It would allow American farmers to bring in 410,000 foreign workers for
farm jobs, as well as 40,000 workers for meatpacking jobs. The number of visas
will increase each year, which means farmers would be able to bring in 1.3
million foreign workers in farming and related industries.
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