Support and Re-Introduce the Agricultural Worker Program Act - Blue Card System

Today I take pen in hand to write and urge support to re-introduce the Agricultural Worker Program Act, a bill to help establish a special Blue Card system, and is a start on fixing our broken immigration system. Under its provisions of the bill, the Agricultural Worker Program Act would establish an earned legalization program for undocumented farmworkers who have been consistently employed in U.S. agriculture and meet other requirements. A majority of the nation’s 2.4 million farmworkers are undocumented. This bill is critically important to our nation’s food and agriculture system, that relies on migrant farmworkers in many states. Under the Trump administration, farmworker communities across the country continue to live and working in fear of increasingly cruel and draconian immigration enforcement and attempts at mass deportation. If enacted, this legislation would alleviate that fear by providing farmworkers and their families an opportunity to earn legal immigration status. The Act also protects agricultural employers of the eligible farmworkers from civil penalties for previously hiring undocumented immigrants. The bill makes good sense. It would leave in place the existing H-2A visa program, which allows employers to hire agricultural guest workers to address shortages of citizens and authorized immigrants. However, the bill would minimize the need for use of the H-2A program by providing a meaningful, longterm solution for agricultural employers. Recent H-2A guest workers meeting eligibility requirements would be able to apply for blue cards. This ‘Blue Card’ System of earned legalization is not any sort of ‘open border’ system as this administration loves to lie about. Workers would have to qualify. 1. workers must:prove employment in U.S. agriculture for at least 100 work days over the last two years; 2. Not be excluded by certain immigration laws; 3. Complete national security and law enforcement clearances; 4. Not have been convicted of a felony, aggravated felony, 3 or more misdemeanors, or certain crimes. 5. Pay an application fee and a $100 fine. The point of all this is to help fix our broken system: The Agricultural Worker Program Act is a sensible step toward needed reform of our immigration system. This bill would bring greater fairness to our treatment of farmworkers while also providing a stable work force for farms. Please support and work to re-introduce this bill in the House and/or Senate, and provide a needed counter-narrative to the policies of the misguided and cruel Trump Administration. Thank you for your attention to this important matter.