Colorado considers recruiting farm workers from Mexico

[AlphaCentauri]

Source: Associated Press Writer

DENVER - Each year, when many people are finishing up their Christmas lists, Colorado rancher Angela Ryden starts wading through red tape so she can get two legal guest workers from Mexico to help her during calving season in March.

That’s the plan. Last year, even with the help of an employment agency, the two workers from Michoacan arrived a month late because of a paperwork problem. By then, half of Ryden’s calves had been born and three had died at her New Castle ranch on the western slope of the Rocky Mountains.



“It’s something every year and it seems like they change the rules all the time,” Ryden said of the federal H2-A visa program for farm workers.

Frustrated with the federal bureaucracy and Congress’ failure to pass immigration reform, two Colorado lawmakers have proposed taking over a large part of the application process and opening offices in Mexico to find people who can arrive in time to pick the state’s crops and run cattle. Arizona is considering setting up its own temporary worker program to help all kinds of businesses suffering labor shortages.

Colorado’s bipartisan bill essentially mirrors the federal H2-A program — including requirements that employers pay for food, housing and transportation and pay a set wage. But it puts the state in charge of recruiting and selecting workers.

Lawmakers see the first office possibly opening in Guadalajara, where Colorado already has an economic development office. The new office would give workers medical screenings and check to make sure they return home.


The change would require approval from the federal government, which isn’t commenting on the plan.

Supporters stress that it’s not a new path to U.S. citizenship or amnesty for undocumented immigrants. Workers who don’t return home on time would be punished by losing 20 percent of their pay, money which would be withheld by the state during their stay in Colorado.

Workers also would get state-issued identification cards, and police would have access to a cardholder database. Employers would have to notify law enforcement within 48 hours if a worker doesn’t show up for work or be fined.

Colorado would recruit 1,000 farm workers in the first year of the program and expand it to 5,000 workers by the fifth year — still short of the 9,000 temporary workers who are believed to be working on Colorado farms and ranches each year.



Read more: http://www.agweekly.com/articles/2008/03/19/news/ag_news/news91.txt

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Minutemen! Tonight we dine in Colorado!!!

:P :P :P :P

[bluestateguy]

1. Pay your workers a living wage, and Americans will come

"Jobs Americans won't do" is just Chamber of Commerce propaganda.

John McCain and the Mexican government agent he has working in his campaign want to drive down wages and benefits for all American workers with bullshit programs like this.

[AlphaCentauri]

2. Time for the minutemen to show their patriotism, take the jobs Mexicans would do

[Name removed]

3. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[AlphaCentauri]

11. Mexicans are accused of everything

Taking their jobs, their culture, their women, their welfare, you name it.
Some even see the ghost of history in their conscience when they read how the Mexican government before 1836 gave many immigrants citizenship but prevent them from taking their slaves so they started to feel repressed and declare Independence to start the Mexican war.

[High Plains]

13. It's those Teenage Immigrant Welfare Mothers on Drugs!

http://www.austinlizards.com/teenage_immigrant_mothers.html


Teenage Immigrant Welfare Mothers on Drugs

It's been five years since we had a raise in pay
And they disallowed my business lunches today
Somebody must have changed the rules of the game
So we've found a convenient scapegoat we can blame

It's those teenage immigrant welfare mothers on drugs
(They're too lazy to work)
Teenage immigrant welfare mothers on drugs
(They're stealing our jobs)

Somebody ran this country deep into debt
I called up Congress, but nobody's called back yet
Sometimes I get so mad I can't think straight
We're looking for relief and it feels so great to hate

All those teenage immigrant welfare mothers on drugs
(They're on the Dole)
Teenage immigrant welfare mothers on drugs
(They're speaking espanol)

Who's to blame for the things we're so angry about?
Who's to blame for uprisings, downsizings, and the drought?
Who's to blame for the end of the good old days?
Who's to blame for that backwards-cap-wearing craze?

It's those teenage immigrant welfare mothers on drugs
(Let's build a thousand-mile fence)
Teenage immigrant welfare mothers on drugs
(It's just common sense)
Teenage immigrant welfare mothers on drugs
(Like the Berlin Wall)
Teenage immigrant welfare mothers on drugs
(Land mines and all!)
Teenage immigrant welfare mothers on drugs

[AlphaCentauri]

14. Nice song, I wish I can listen it

[TML]

7. I'm not buying it

I seriously doubt they will clean toilets, custodial work, pick produce, lawncare or other jobs like that because they were never designed to be high-paying jobs.

[crimsonblue]

4. I guess it would be too easy to hire the unemployed or homeless...

I bet there are thousands of homeless and jobless Americans that would be willing to do the work... but I guess that makes too much sense.

[elleng]

5. Some of these are semi-skilled jobs,

others require transportation, and others, willingness to travel from week to week depending on harvesting seasons.

"Too much sense" is to inform everyone in the U.S. what is necessary; clearly, 'small' farmers and ranchers can't afford do that; bigger ones DO THAT, and their crops are cared for. We buy those crops every day, in large chain grocery stores.

This is largely an 'invisible' problem; we gringos complain bitterly that someones are taking our jobs, we don't trace the problem, and we don't really think about the solutions. We complain bitterly about 'politicians' who DO think, and propose.

Its a big country, with big problems. Big people MAY be able to help solve them, but in the meantime, governors seek to help their taxpaying residents.

[AlphaCentauri]

10. agree, its not a simple statement solution

There are some programs to help those migrant workers like the migrant education initiatives http://www.pde.state.pa.us/migranted/site/default.asp

[pegleg]

6. Exactly

[DinahMoeHum]

8. ". . .should Americans pick crops?. . .George says no. . ."

"...'cuz no one but a Mexican would stoop so low,
and after all, even in Egypt, the Pharaohs...
had to import (da-da-da da) Hebrew braceros..."

- Tom Lehrer: George Murphy

:evilgrin:

[AlphaCentauri]

15. lol

[Robbien]

9. Colorado officials just doing what corporations have been doing

At least Colorado is being open and above board about recruiting immigrants while corporations do their recruiting under the radar.

Hopefully this action will help keep immigrants from being treated as slave laborers.

[AlphaCentauri]

12. What a dilemma Colorado has the most anti immigrant congressman

[Doctor_J]

16. Is the NAFTA Superhighway going to go through CO?

I guess that would help