Press Releases

Yesterday, the U.S. House Judiciary Committee held a full committee markup of H.R. 1773, the “Agricultural Guestworker Act.” Following the markup, Ranking Member John Conyers, Jr. (D-Mich.) issued the following statement:

“The agriculture sector in the United States relies on more than a million undocumented workers to toil in our fields and put food on our tables. These workers are essential to our thriving agricultural system, and they represent more than 75% of all agricultural workers. Unfortunately, the Republican driven legislation that we are considering today provides these indispensable individuals with nothing more than guestworker visas that would require them to leave the country in 18 months, with no promise of return. In terms of reforming our broken immigration system, this is simply unacceptable.”

“Over the last few months, the nation’s leading farm workers labor organizations, alongside the principal farmer-oriented associations in the U.S., reached a historic compromise between agricultural employers and employees. Unfortunately, H.R. 1773, the ‘Agricultural Guestworker Act’ completely ignores this balanced solution, which would have established a valid path for current undocumented farmworkers to earn permanent legal status.

“Rather than embracing this bipartisan compromise, H.R. 1773 only allows undocumented agricultural workers the ability to become guestworkers, who are then required to leave after 18 months. This means that individuals would have to leave their spouses, their children, and their homes. In effect, we would be asking these people to come out of the shadows and ‘report to deport.’

“We must turn the corner and move past the idea that 11 million undocumented people will ‘self-deport.’ This legislation is disrespectful to workers, and a step in the wrong direction for comprehensive reform of our broken immigration system. We have a critical opportunity to fix these problems that have long-plagued farmers and the workers they depend on. We must not let this window of opportunity for reform escape us.”

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