Farm Guest Workers
Alabama farmers are wondering where they’ll find workers for next year’s growing season. They say the state’s tough immigration law has driven away much of the migrant labor they rely on. One option is for farmers to hire foreign guest workers. And as WBHM’s Andrew Yeager reports, a number of private companies stand to benefit.
John Aplin’s story has become a familiar one. He runs a fourth-generation family vegetable farm near Slocomb, Alabama. For years, he’s had reliable migrant workers each picking season.
“We’ve had our same crew up until this year for 23 years.”
Aplin says Alabama’s immigration law scared off his legal workers because they may have members of their families who are in the country illegally. He’s negotiating with the workers and trying to get them to come back. But Aplin’s concerned because timing is important for harvesting vegetables.
“So we have to have our labor force set well ahead of time and know that they’re gonna be here.”
Aplin says he’s never had luck hiring Alabamians even though he pays well over minimum wage. He calls the idea of using prison labor a joke. But he is thinking about hiring foreign workers under the federal government’s H-2A visa program.
The idea is fairly simple. Farmers who demonstrate they can’t get qualified American workers can use these visas to bring in temporary foreign workers. But application of the program is a lot more complicated.
“There’s a huge amount of paperwork and process.”
Jonathan Phillips is an agriculture economist at North Carolina State University. Beyond the red tape and fees, farmers have to pay to transport and house the guest workers. That has to meet standards.
“My house would probably fail an H-2A inspection right now, just because I have a busted screen and I have some dirty dishes sitting in my sink.”
Phillips says the program is so cumbersome, some agriculture operations will pay private companies to take care of the paperwork and find laborers. And one farmer says since Alabama’s immigration law went into effect, those companies have been circling the state like buzzards.
“Good morning, everybody. My name is Rodolfo Alvarez.”
Rodolfo Alvarez spoke at a farmers meeting at the Blount County Ag Center back in October. He’s CEO of the Phoenix-based Guest Worker Specialists.
“Currently I have in my database about 3,200 workers with passports ready and it’s just a matter of getting the sponsors to bring them across the border.”
And while using one of these guest worker companies may be more convenient for farmers, it’s not without cost.
“We’re going to charge them about $3,600 for everything that we do at the front end and that’s for whatever number of workers they’re bringing in.”
Kerry Scott is with masLabor H-2A, a Virginia-based company which places agriculture workers around the country. He says his company charges about $7,000 dollars for 10 workers. Some of that goes to government fees.
Scott says when Arizona, Alabama and other states starts passing immigration laws, the company feels it.
“Our phone very quickly starts to ring and requests for information via e-mail obviously ratchets up.”
He says the law has brought some new business in Arizona and he expects to get a slice of the market in Alabama. But he says it’s not the bonanza you might expect.
“We’re getting lots of inquiries, but they’re not resulting in somebody actually going into the program because the Obama administration is making it awfully difficult to use.”
Jonathan Phillips at North Carolina State agrees. Washington is making the program more expensive and bureaucratic. Phillips says the theory is that makes hiring American workers more attractive. So farmers are caught, he says, between an increasingly cumbersome H-2A visa program and increased immigration enforcement at the national level and in some states.
Alabama farmer John Aplin has been doing the math. The cost of finding workers, housing and transporting them. And by the way, you still have to pay the guest workers and as you can imagine there are regulations on wages.
“It’s a major headache. I mean, it’s a hassle.”
Aplin points out guest workers are exempt from payroll taxes, meaning a loss for federal coffers if he can’t find laborers in this country. Still Aplin says in his case, he could afford to hire guest workers, but he probably won’t. He likely couldn’t get them in place until too late in the season. He doesn’t really know where that leaves his farm.
U.K. Parliament bans women from being prosecuted for late-term abortion
The new law makes it illegal to investigate, arrest, prosecute or imprison any woman in England or Wales for terminating her own pregnancy — no matter what term or trimester she's in.
A battle of sounds stops at the inter-Korean border
The two Koreas have engaged in psychological warfare since the 1960s, with weapons like huge billboard screens, loudspeakers installed along the border, and airdropping propaganda leaflets.
New Report: U.S. drug overdose deaths rise again after hopeful decline
The latest 12-month report from the CDC showed 1,400 more deaths in January of this year compared with the year prior. This comes after more than a year of dramatic progress. Experts say they're not sure if this is a "blip" or something more troubling.
Conspiracy theorist Alex Jones accused of hiding money from Sandy Hook families
U.S. bankruptcy Trustee Christopher Murray has filed three suits accusing Infowars host Alex Jones of hiding millions of dollars in cash and property.
Trump administration actions contradict MAHA rhetoric on toxic chemicals
Trump says he backs the MAHA agenda which includes eliminating toxins linked to human health problems. But his administration continues to cuts funds, grants and regulations that support that goal.
Announcing the 2024 NPR College Podcast Challenge Honorable Mentions
Here are some of the best entries in NPR's 2024 College Podcast Challenge.