Bush Administration Planning to Help Farmers

Not surprisingly, border fences, immigration raids, and increased immigration enforcement generally have made labor markets tighter.  The L.A. Times reports that, with a nationwide farmworker shortage threatening to leave unharvested fruits and vegetables rotting in fields, the Bush administration has begun quietly rewriting federal regulations to eliminate barriers that restrict how foreign laborers can legally be brought into the country. The effort, urgently underway at the departments of Homeland Security, State and Labor, is meant to rescue farm owners caught in a vise between a complex process to hire legal guest workers and stepped-up enforcement that has reduced the number of planters, pickers and middle managers.

Somewhat ironically but nonetheless revealing, Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff earlier in the week defended the construction of a fence along the southwest border, saying that it is good for the environment. “Illegal migrants really degrade the environment. I’ve seen pictures of human waste, garbage, discarded bottles and other human artifact in pristine areas,” Chertoff said in a telephone interview with The Associated Press. “And believe me, that is the worst thing you can do to the environment.”

KJ