Mediaboss Marketing

When President Trump publicly backed a bill to curb legal immigration, he placed a decades-old ideathat until now had been largely sidelinedback into the mainstream.

Earlier this month, Trump threw his weight behind a modified version of the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy Act, a measure first introduced by Republican Senators Tom Cotton and David Perdue in February that would cut legal immigration to the United States by 50 percent over a decade. Finally, the reforms in the RAISE Act will help ensure that newcomers to our wonderful country will be assimilated, will succeed, and will achieve the American Dream, Trump said in an announcement from the White House.

Immigration-restrictionist groups immediately praised Trumps endorsement. Seeing the President standing with the bill's sponsors at the White House gives hope to the tens of millions of struggling Americans in stagnant jobs or outside the labor market altogether, said Roy Beck, the president of NumbersUSA, in a statement. President Trump is to be praised for moving beyond the easy issue of enforcement, wrote Mark Krikorian, the executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies, in The National Interest.

Could Trumps Immigration Agenda Ever Get Through Congress?

Cotton and Perdues bill targets the family reunification component of the 1965 Immigration Act by giving visa preference only to immediate family and eliminating the diversity visa lottery, which allots a certain number of visas to countries with historically low rates of immigration to the United States. It also proposes a merit-based immigration system, which gives preference to highly-skilled and educated individuals. After 10 years, the measure projects, immigration levels would drop to nearly 540,000 a year, a 50 percent drop from the current rate.

Trump, who made cracking down on immigration a cornerstone of his campaign, has presented immigration restrictionists with the best opportunity to reduce legal immigration in a generation. The RAISE Act itself is reminiscent of recommendations made in the 1990s to overhaul the U.S. immigration system in order to reduce the number of immigrants in the United States.

White House aides have been working with the two Republican senators on the legislation, as has Republican Representative Lamar Smith of Texas, a key player during attempts to change the legal immigration system in the 1990s. I have been in discussions with Members of Congress and the Administration since President Trump took office in January, Smith told me in an email. I worked with Senators Cotton and [Perdue] in crafting the RAISE Act.

By the 1990s, the United States was reckoning with a significant uptick of immigrants. The 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act, a sweeping bill that opened the doors to immigrants from around the world, and a 1986 law that granted citizenship to undocumented immigrants in the United States, both contributed to an influx in the foreign-born American population. Then, in 1990, George H.W. Bush signed the Immigration Act of 1990, which increased the number of legal immigrants allowed entry to the United States. Notably, the legislation also set up the Commission on Legal Immigration Reform to examine U.S. policies. Barbara Jordan, a former Democratic congresswoman from Texas, headed the panel.

The whole commission was not about reducing immigration per se. It was about what is the right level of immigration, so that were not disproportionally harming Americas most vulnerable workers, said Rosemary Jenks, the director of government relations at NumbersUSA.

In 1995, the panel recommended cutting legal immigration by one-third, so that the U.S. would allow in 700,000 a year and later, 550,000 immigrants a yeara major drop from the current level at the time, 830,000 a year. The commission suggested limiting preferences for the extended family of U.S. citizens and permanent residents, who could previously apply for a visa under the 1965 Immigration Act, and basing entry entry on job skills.

To some degree, the recommendations were reflective of the national discourse at the time, which focused on how foreign-born workers were affecting the economy. On the one end, the labor movement was opposed to immigration, seeing it as a disadvantage to native-born workers, while on the other, corporations expressed support for amnesty because they employed skilled immigrants. There were a lot of undocumented immigrants in the United States who had overstayed their visas and who in fact [were] holding very responsible jobs in science, technology, who were entrepreneurial, and moreover, better-educated class of immigrant, which was a real plus for the high-tech firms, said Alan Kraut, a history professor at American University.

This put the Democratic Party, which has by and large been pro-immigration and pro-labor, in a bind. In Clintons case, he felt he could shoot up the middle and retain loyalty within the American labor movement and also loyalty on the part of the various immigration groups because after all, where else could they turn, Kraut said. But there was another shift happening in the Democratic Partythe demographic change sparked by the 1965 law was altering the partys base. In 1992, for example, 76 percent of Democrats and Democratic-leaning voters were non-Hispanic whites compared to 57 percent today, according to the Pew Research Center.

The proposals, and the Clinton administrations embrace of it, received pushback from immigrant advocacy groups and some Republicans, who argued that reducing legal immigration would in fact hinder the economy. Most immigrants today are not sponges off the system; they are hard-working, and they carry with them that work ethic that made America great, then-House Majority Leader Dick Armey, a Republican from Texas, told his constituents.

Still, the commissions findings had reinforced Smiths proposals on legal immigration, Jenks said. Smith introduced legislation that sought to place greater emphasis on skills and scrap the diversity visa program, similar to what the RAISE Act aims to do today. Meanwhile, in the Senate, Al Simpson introduced a piece of legislation that, like Smiths, aimed to crackdown on illegal immigration and curb legal immigration. In the end, provisions on legal immigration failed to pass in both chambersleaving the Clinton administration with a choice about whether to support new restrictions on illegal immigration.

The administration told the Congress that the president would veto a bill that included the legal immigration reductions, said Doris Meissner, the former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service. They were left with a dilemmathe Congressof whether they wanted to try to pass a bill that had the legal immigration reductions in it and face the possibility of a presidential veto or whether they were going to do what was called split the bill and deal with just illegal immigrationand thats what they decided to do because the administration was willing to cooperate with that.

The pressures from outside groups might have swayed the presidents decision, Meissner said. The New York Times reported at the time that the proposals drew criticism from a wide range of business, ethnic and religious groups. Kraut added: Clinton understood, as the Democrats understood that came before them, that you must have the ethnic vote. And for him, the growing strength of the Latino vote and the growing strength of the Asian vote and the growing strength of other groups like that necessitated that he have a reasonably pro-immigration stance.

Since then, attempts to reform the U.S. immigration system have faltered in the face of heated political opposition to the legalization of undocumented immigrants. George W. Bushs immigration reform bill in 2007 would have provided legal status for millions of undocumented immigrants living in the U.S., set up a new guest-worker program, and included a merit-based system. It died in the Democratic-controlled Senate due to opposition from the right and left. Barack Obama, who was elected in 2008 on a promise to reform the immigration system, took his pass in 2013: A group of senators, dubbed the Gang of Eight, drafted bipartisan legislation that included enforcement measures and offered a pathway to citizenship, but was killed in the Republican-controlled House. Largely left out of the national dialogue were proposals to reduce legal immigration.

Cotton and Perdues bill reintroduces the recommendations made by the Commission on Immigration Reform and later adopted by Smith in his legislation. The commission made the recommendation, as we are today, of admitting individuals with the education, skills and abilities that we need in America, and placing less of an emphasis on extended family members, Smith said in an email. These reforms make sure that our immigration policies protect hard-working Americans. He added: If President Clinton hadnt switched his position several weeks before the 1996 bill, we would have accomplished legal immigration reform then.

The White House is playing a significant role in thrusting the proposal into the mainstream. On the day that Trump backed the legislation, top White House adviser Stephen Miller addressed the proposed changes at a White House briefing. The effect of this, switching to a skills-based system and ending unfettered chain migration, would be, over time, you would cut net migration in half, which polling shows is supported overwhelmingly by the American people in very large numbers, he said. The White House has since pushed out a series of releases highlighting praise for the RAISE Act.

The very fact that it got this kind of high-profile presidential treatment means that this is an issue thats not going away, Krikorian told me.

Any changes to legal immigration could have a profound impact on the demographic makeup of the country. According to the Department of Homeland Security, roughly two-thirds of immigrants were given green cards because of family connections in the United States in fiscal year 2017and approximately 13 percent obtained status under an employment-based preference category. As Tom Gjelten, the author of A Nation of Nations: A Great American Immigration Story, wrote in The Atlantic: The key lesson of the 1965 reforms is that social engineering through the adjustment of immigration policy is no simple matterand almost any such effort will produce dramatic, unintended consequences. That could be the case in transitioning over to a point system that prioritizes high-skilled immigrants.

Critics of the merit-based system argue that it could hinder the economy by hurting industries that rely on low-skilled immigrant labor, while some economists say higher-skilled immigrants could contribute more to the economy.

Its not clear if and when the bill would progress through Congress. For one, lawmakers plan on taking up tax reform next. And a bill would need 60 votes in the Senate to advance, meaning itd have to receive some Democratic support. Theres also no indication that leadership plans on taking it up; Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has been mum on the legislation. Smith, for his part, will introduce a companion bill in the House in September. My bill will have the same contours as the Senate bill, but we havent finalized every word, he told me.

Just the fact that the proposals have picked up steam again is reassuring for some. We had a small window in the mid-1990s because of Barbara Jordan. It was OK to talk about immigration and reducing it and then that window closed and now we have an opportunity to have a serious public debate, Jenks said. Theres no promise, however, that its fate this time around will be any different.

Continued here:
Can a Decades-Old Immigration Proposal Pass Under Trump? - The Atlantic

Some Democrats and their advocates in the press have been quick to denounce the RAISE Act, the new immigration reform bill proposed by Republican Sens. Tom Cotton and David Perdue and endorsed by President Donald Trump.

"The Trump, Cotton, Perdue bill is rooted in the same anti-immigrant, xenophobic, and isolationist rhetoric that was a cornerstone of the Trump campaign," said senior House Democrats John Conyers and Zoe Lofgren.

Now, though, a new poll shows broad public support for some of the bill's key provisions -- support that goes far beyond those Americans who voted for Trump.

The poll, from Morning Consult-Politico, asked 1,992 registered voters about the bill's provisions to 1) allow more high-skilled, and fewer low-skilled, immigrants into the country; 2) install a points-based system by which prospective immigrants would be evaluated on the basis of English proficiency, level of education, and other factors; 3) cap the number of refugees allowed in the U.S. each year; and 4) reduce the total number of immigrants given legal permanent residence in the country to 500,000 from the current one million.

The pollsters found strong majority support for the first three, and a plurality of support for the fourth.

When asked if they support "placing greater emphasis on an applicant's job skills over their ties to family members in the U.S.," 56 percent of respondents said yes, while 31 percent said no and 13 percent did not know.

When asked if they support "establishing a 'points system' that would award points based on criteria such as education, English-language ability, and prospective salary," 61 percent said yes, while 27 percent said no and 12 percent did not know. (Respondents particularly approved an emphasis on speaking English; when asked if they believe an ability to speak English "should be a factor in determining who is allowed to legally immigrate to the United States," 62 percent said yes, while 29 percent said no and 10 percent did not know.)

When asked if they support "limiting the number of refugees offered permanent residency," 59 percent said yes, while 31 percent said no and 11 percent did not know.

Finally, when asked if they support "reducing the number of legal immigrants by one-half over the next decade," 48 percent said yes, while 39 percent said no and 14 percent did not know.

"Large majorities of Americans have long wanted to re-orient our immigration system toward high-skilled workers, while reducing or holding steady the total number of immigrants," Cotton said in a text exchange recently. "The RAISE Act respects this popular consensus, unlike past efforts at immigration reform that failed in part because they massively expanded unskilled immigration."

Cotton appeared to choose his words carefully when he wrote "reducing or holding steady the total number of immigrants." The part of the bill that would cut the number of legal permanent residents from a million to 500,000 per year is the major component that doesn't have majority support in the poll, although it has more support than any other option.

The Cotton-Perdue bill has been slammed by Democrats, but it has also been criticized by the Republicans who wrote the Senate Gang of Eight bill in 2013, the last (unsuccessful) effort to pass comprehensive immigration reform.

"I don't want to limit legal immigration," Marco Rubio said. Lindsey Graham, from South Carolina, said the bill would be "devastating to our state's economy." John McCain opposes shifting to a high-skilled immigrant force. Jeff Flake said the new bill represents "the wrong direction."

Such opinions track those of many Democrats, which will make any path forward in the Senate an uphill climb. But if the new poll is correct -- and it is in line with similar surveys going back years -- the bill's authors have the voters on their side.

Byron York is chief political correspondent for The Washington Examiner.

Continued here:
Voters like immigration bill - The Tand D.com

With protesters and counter-protesters facing off in tense confrontations across the country this weekend in the wake of the deadly clash in Charlottesville, Va., activists in Orange County wanted to try something different.

An America First! rally against illegal immigration was scheduled for Sunday evening. Counter-protesters, including the citys mayor, staged their own protest but scheduled it a day earlier.

As were constantly reminded to act and not react, were also reminded not to serve the racists purpose and provide them with a platform to spread their hatred, organizers of the Saturday event wrote on Facebook.

To the several hundred protesters who showed up Saturday, Laguna Beach Mayor Toni Iseman said: Tell your friends that being here today means you wont be dancing with the bad guys tomorrow.

They want a fight; were not going to engage, Iseman said.

Still, hundreds of counter-protesters showed up anyway at the America First! rally Sunday evening. A police spokesman estimated the crowd of protesters and counter-protesters grew to about 2,500 only a few dozen in that crowd were there for the America First! rally, billed as a vigil for victims of crimes committed by immigrants in the U.S. illegally.

The protests remained largely peaceful, if tense and loud, for much of the evening. As of 8:30 p.m., police had made two arrests; one counter-protester was arrested after shoving a Trump supporter, another for disturbing the peace with a knife. It was not immediately clear which side the person with a knife was protesting.

Shortly before 9:30 p.m., as the protests wound down, police escorted the America First! group out of the area. Police declared the event an unlawful assembly and ordered the crowd to disperse.

Crowds started gathering hours before the planned protest. The modest cluster of anti-immigration demonstrators met in a circle on the beach, separated by the boardwalk and a phalanx of police officers in riot gear and on horseback from hundreds of counter-protesters chanting and drumming from the other side. Some yelled insults between the officers legs.

Waving signs that read Curb your Nazism, protesters on one side shouted, Immigrants welcome here and Hey hey, ho ho, white supremacys got to go.

"It's ridiculous. I don't understand this. They're the ones with all the hate," said Jesse Hernandez, who was attending the America First! rally. It's just a vigil of patriots that recognize what illegal immigration has done to some Americans."

One of his fellow America First! protesters yelled, "We're not Nazis!" and said what upsets him the most is that people don't understand the difference between people like him and extremists. "There are no Nazis here," he said, shaking his head.

About 200 officers from Laguna Beach, Anaheim, Newport Beach and Irvine were at the rally to try to ensure that the protests would not erupt in violence. Orange County sheriffs deputies on horseback were also separating the crowds.

Laguna Beach police spokesman Jim Cota said authorities strategized to spread protesters along the length of the beach rather than have them build toward the waterfront.

As long as everyone follows the rules, they can execute their 1st Amendment right, he said. Were just not going to tolerate violence.

The organizer behind the anti-immigration event, a man identifying himself as Johnny Benitez, has held similar gatherings in Laguna Beach since May.

On Sunday, Benitez, a Colombian immigrant, calmly debated the need for affirmative action with a woman who accused him of hateful speech. He said people of color are most negatively affected by immigration.

Benitez told a Noticias Telemundo reporter in Spanish that coming into the United States illegally is a crime, and that labor by immigrants here illegally was responsible for low wages.

After the clash in Charlottesville, which left one woman dead when a driver plowed his car into a crowd of counter-protesters at a white nationalist rally, the Laguna Beach event became the focal point of self-proclaimed anti-fascist protesters in Orange County.

Similar protests and counter-protests took place across the country over the weekend, including in New Orleans and Dallas. The largest demonstration occurred in Boston, where about 50 far-right activists organized a free speech rally and were outnumbered by tens of thousands of counter-protesters.

Twenty-seven people were arrested in Boston, mostly for disorderly conduct, but no injuries were reported.

The Laguna Beach protests came after a weekend in which prominent leaders spoke out in Los Angeles against racism and violence.

The Rev. Jesse Jackson, appearing at the Islamic Center of Southern California, said Heather Heyer, the protester killed in Charlottesville when a man drove a car into a crowd demonstrating against white supremacists, was powerful because she was nonviolent.

If she had had a stick or a gun and cursing, she would have been dismissible. There is power in nonviolence, he said. Theres power in suffering and sacrificing for righteous reasons. Theres power in putting your life on the line for more life. Eye and an eye and tooth for tooth is not wisdom.

Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gomez, in his weekend sermons, raised alarm about a new kind of racism and nationalism rooted in fear.

Gomez said some of the fear is about what is happening in our society, referring to the racial tensions that have divided the country following the white supremacy rally in Charlottesville.

Our country has become so angry and bitter, so divided in so many different areas, he said. There is no place in the Church and there is no place in American society for racism and prejudice against people based on their race or nationality.

He also noted that the national debate over immigration reform has been marked by a lot of racism and nativism even among Catholics.

This is all wrong and it needs to stop! Gomez said. Our task is to bring people together, to build bridges and open doors and make friendships among all the diverse racial and ethnic groups and nationalities in our country.

Times staff writers Brittny Mejia, Doug Smith and Carlos Lozano contributed to this report.

andrea.castillo@latimes.com

victoria.kim@latimes.com

UPDATES:

9:45 p.m.: This article has been updated throughout with additional details and comments about the rally and counter-protesters.

7:35 p.m.: This article has been updated with additional details about interactions between different groups at the rally.

6:50 p.m.: This article has been updated with additional details about police and the rally organizer.

This article was originally published at 6:10 p.m.

View original post here:
Counter-protesters swarm rally against illegal immigration in Laguna Beach - Los Angeles Times

In a heartfelt piece arguing for immigration reform, Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ), a harsh critic of President Donald Trumps policies, wrote about his experiences with Manuel Chaidez, a farmworker who worked on his familys farm for 24 years. The column comes as the Trump administration has proposed to cut legal immigration by 50 percent, a disastrous policy plan that would grant entry only to high-skilled workers into the country.

Flakes New York Times opinion piece published Friday and is a schmaltzy ode of sorts highlighting the utility of low-skilled agricultural workersvenerated the best qualities seen in immigrants. Chaidez, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, never quit the hard labor despite Flakes own high school buddies wash[ing] out after a day or two. Chaidez was so close to the family that he gave out invaluable relationship advice.

Without such work there is no ranch, Flake wrote. Without ranches, my town and towns like it falter. And so in my estimation, Manuel is just about the highest-value immigrant possible, and if we forget that, then we forget something elemental about America.

Flake also curiously noted that the U.S. Customs and Border Protection agency deported Chaidez several times to Mexico. Each time, he made his way back, Flake said, without explaining why his family failed to sponsor Chaidez to ease the multiple displacements. An email to Flakes office was sent Friday morning on this matter.

The larger picture is that this country is filled with Manuel Chaidezes. Chaidez was, in part, a crucial reason why Flake is a unicorn among Republican lawmakers when it comes to immigration policy. The Republican senator may have aligned withPresident Donald Trumps position 93.5 percent of the time since inauguration, but Flake has been an outspoken supporter of comprehensive immigration reform when other Republican lawmakers have not been so willing.

Flakes commitment to immigration reform didnt happen in a vacuum. His personal interaction to Chaidez molded his views. That was also the case with former presidential candidate Jeb Bush, whose maid Maria Magdalena Romero was deported in 1991.It was a difficult time for all of us, but most of all for Maria, he told the Washington Post in 2013.

Outside of Flake and Bush (whos no longer in office), there is strong Republican backing for the Trump administrations indiscriminate pursuit of undocumented immigrants, regardless of their positive equities in this country or the lack of a criminal record.But some of those very same Republicans who want to shut the door on immigrants are also sponsoring immigration bills that are compassionate in nature.

In the current 115th Congress, five Republicans have supported private immigration bills to provide relief, or permanent residence status for certain foreign nationals on compassionate grounds. This took place most recently eight days after Trump tweeted support for a British family who did not want to take their son Charlie Gard off life support, as requested by UK doctors. Reps. Trent Franks (R-AZ), Ann Wagner (R-MO), and Brad Wenstrup (R-OH) separately introduced a bill on July 11 to allow the Gard family into the United States so that they could seek an experimental treatment in New York. Gard died on July 28 after his parents gave up the fight against the UK hospital.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) stands for policies unkind towards so-called DREAMers brought to the country as youths and Central American women and children fleeing violence. But on July 19, he introduced a private immigration bill to grant a green card to Liu Xia, the wife of the late Chinese Nobel winner Liu Xiao Bo. Liu Xia, who was has been under house arrest since 2010, has been missing since her husbands burial at sea on July 13.

Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) who once said that granting temporary immigration relief to DREAMers was an insult to the rule of law has repeatedly sponsored a private immigration bill to grant permanent residence status for a family through a case inherited from his predecessor and father, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported in May. As ThinkProgress reporter Josh Israel previously reported, the case concerns a Colombian family of four who were denied asylum despite their claims that they were being extorted by guerrillas who threatened to kidnap the young son.

Private immigration bills have long been a bipartisan way for lawmakers to push for deferred removals from the country on behalf of individual people in dire circumstances.But if compassion is the currency on which lawmakers get to choose who lives in the country and who could die after deportation to their home countries, then it could be argued that there are other immigrants worthy of the sentiment. One Mexican man, a father of three, jumped to his death after ICE deported him in February. In May, Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) condemned the deportation of an asylum-seeking Honduran mother and her five-year-old child who were running from death away from gangs who would target them the moment they land in Honduras.

All that could be a moot point anyway. Private bills no longer carry the same weight under the Trump administration. When lawmakers introduce private bills, ICE has in the past granted a stay of removal until Congress either took action on the bill or adjourned without taking action ont he bill and the grace period expired, according to a May 2017 letter to congressional members from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agency acting director Thomas Homan. In that letter, Homanwrote that his agency would no longerdelay the deportation of people with pending private bills.

Josh Israel contributed to the research for this article.

Read more here:
There's a major disconnect in how Republicans think about immigration reform - ThinkProgress

GETTYSBURG, PENNSYLVANIA

At CareerLink, the state job agency in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, custodial worker and former welder Glenn Hendrickson was looking to change careers. Hendrickson was just beginning his search for a new line of work and he did not yet know what would pique his interest.

But he for sure wasnt interested in farm work, except as a last resort.

Ive had a lot of friends who have had summer jobs, like when they were in high school, picking fruit but I doubt anyone would make a career out of it, he said.

According to local farm sector employers, most workers are paid well above Pennsylvanias minimum wage of $7.25 per hour. Crew chiefs and foremen on some orchards earn close to $19 per hour. Yet few native-born Americans are willing to do this work, even if unemployed says Alan Dudley, administrator of the Gettysburg CareerLink office.

The work is difficult, especially in the fields, and its not necessarily unskilled work," he said. "Orchard owners want skilled people to harvest apples so they get the best return on their crop.

Adams Countys farms, orchards, and processing plants are where the jobs are. The so-called fruit belt of vast peach and apple orchards extends across the regions rolling green hills, along with the packing and processing companies and other agricultural-related businesses.

Tourism, with the 3 million visitors drawn annually to the historic Civil War battlefield of Gettysburg, is the other main economic generator.

Adams Countys $580-million fruit industry depends heavily on immigrant labor, which is why the country may be facing an unintended consequence of the Trump administrations crackdown on illegal immigrants.

Businesses in the agricultural-based economy are experiencing labor shortages, and orchard owners are bracing for the possibility of not having enough workers for the fall harvest.

Fleeing workforce

Last month, six Hispanic employees of a county fruit-packing company, which does not want to be identified, were picked up by local police and turned over to immigration agents, who sent them to a detention facility. These and other detentions have had a chilling effect on the countys Hispanic residents, who make up 6.5 percent of the population of some 100,000 people.

Yet because of the immigration crackdown, workers are not showing up or in some instances, have fled. The local plant of Hillandale Farms, a major national egg producer and distributor, was desperately seeking to fill vacant jobs this summer, according to a company official, because much of its Hispanic work force had disappeared.

As the autumn harvest approaches, the demand for labor is accelerating, Dudley says, not just in the orchards but also in the fruit processing and other agriculture-related industries.

So theyre coming into their busy hiring season right now. For instance, Knouse Foods just last week posted about eight new positions on our job search website.

No roving checkpoints

Adams County voted overwhelmingly for Donald Trump in last Novembers presidential election.

At the Latimore Valley fair in June, which attracted several thousand people to watch antique car races, trucking company secretary Kim Sanders expressed strong support for President Trumps policy of arresting and deporting illegal immigrants who have committed crimes.

But, echoing the views of others at the fair who were asked the same question, Sanders wants the law-abiding undocumented immigrants to be able to stay.

I hate to say it but there are not enough American people to go out and work on a farm, or do planting and pick vegetables like they will, she said.

Republican Congressman Scott Perry, whose district includes Adams County, has heard the concerns of orchard owners and other businesses in the fruit industry. Perry told VOA his message to them is that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has assured him nothing has changed in its enforcement actions.

Theres not like roving checkpoints, he said. Theyre targeted enforcement.

But ICE has changed its policies somewhat. Acting-ICE chief Tom Homan told reporters at the White House last month that no populations are off the table. So non-criminals, those who have got a court order from a judge that refuse to leave, were looking for.

Under the last two years of the previous Obama administration, non-criminals were not a priority and were often let go if detained.

Growers such as Kay Hollabaugh are running out of patience. She met last month with Congressman Perry and local lawmakers to express her concerns about the future of the Adams County fruit belt if the immigrant labor force is driven out.

Those people who are making the laws of our land, eat every day, she said. If we could simply stop producing food for a month - OK, no food, no food - I think perhaps that would make some bells go off.

Ripening fruit

The Trump administrations immigration policy has galvanized activists in Adams County to press for immigration reform and to lobby local lawmakers to vote against measures that would target immigrant communities.

Jenny Dumont, a Spanish professor at Gettysburg College who leads the immigration lobbying effort for a grassroots group called Gettysburg Rising, blames the Trump administrations rhetoric for creating unwarranted fears about the undocumented.

Its pretty well documented that immigrants are less likely to commit crimes than native-born Americans, Dumont said. My sense is that people, if theyve had contact with immigrants here, that they understand the contributions that they make, theyre able to see them as people not just the label immigrant, the other.

But Congressman Perry said the border would have to be secured before Americans would agree to any immigration reform measure.

If you just seal the border without doing some of these other reforms, were going to have problems from a business standpoint as well, and I think they get that but again theres this mistrust," he said. "They want to see action not words, the congressman said referring to border security.

As the push and pull over immigration policy plays out, farmers may get some relief as the federal government issues more visas for temporary agricultural workers, mainly from Mexico. The U.S. Labor Department has issued 20 percent more H-2A visas in 2017, compared to last year. Those visas are for seasonal agricultural work, such as harvesting berries, fruit or other crops.

But the visas require require farmers to demonstrate that no Americans will take the jobs they offer. In the meantime, the apple crop is ripening on the trees in Adams County. With harvesting about to begin in less than a month, orchard owners are not sure if enough workers will show up.

Kay Hollabaugh repeated what a top executive of a major food processor told her recently: If fruit goes, the Adams County economy falls and were out of business.

Read more from the original source:
Rural America Braces for Labor Shortages After Immigration Crackdown - Voice of America