Like the weather, everyone is talking about immigration reform, but few are actually doing it.
In fact, doing nothing is a major feature of immigration legislation. A Google search for the term “ag immigration stalemate” “gets about 621,000 results in 0.61 seconds” dating back to at least the mid-1990s.
There was a movement last summer, however, when leading U.S. senators announced they were close to an immigration deal under a bill approved by the House of Representatives in 2021. As Politico reported last July, the bipartisan bill opens up “a pathway for foreign farm workers to gain legal status for year-round work,” a key need for any immigration bill to move forward.
But that effort was quickly thwarted by two very Capitol Hill reasons: a shortened Senate calendar in an election year and border security. Senate Republicans have repeatedly warned most Democrats that there will be no immigration bill without accompanying legislation to close the porous U.S.-Mexico border.
Republicans hope to win the House and Senate in November, pushing the Senate effort into deeper context. This win-win would bring immigration: Any current bill would die by the end of the Congressional session, and more importantly, Republicans would write a tougher, narrower alternative.
Republicans, however, narrowly won the House, 222-213, after Democrats in the Senate kept their 50 seats and gained one. A divided Congress portends few compromises on most issues over the next two years, all but guaranteeing no action on any immigration reform.
Adding to those prospects is the public disagreement among House Republicans over who will lead them after securing a majority on Jan. 1. 3. Californian Kevin McCarthy reportedly has yet to lock in the 218 votes needed to get the speaker’s gavel.
No speaker means no legislation, and no legislation means continued gridlock no matter how long it takes Republicans to pick a leader.
Sensing the year-end opening before Republicans in the House take over, the Democrat leading the Senate immigration reform effort, Michael Bennet of Colorado, released an immigration bill on Dec. 12. 15. The Bennet bill, like the bipartisan 2021 House bill, covers everything both sides say is needed in any reform legislation — and, frankly, more.
“Everything” is the easy part; however, “more” jeopardizes the bill’s chances of passage from the start.
For example, both Republicans and Democrats agreed that the key H-2A program, the temporary visa program that many farmers and ranchers rely on for legal seasonal immigrant workers, would be extended for three years. Bennet’s bill would increase the current headcount by 26,000, half of which goes to dairy jobs. Over the next six years, the number of visas will increase by 15% each year.
Those rising numbers are a big reason why the National Milk Producers Federation was quick to approve Bennett’s bill.
Other agricultural giants, like the American Farm Bureau Federation, want more visas now and in the future than the plan Bennett offers. But immigrant labor groups argue that more visas means a larger labor pool, which in turn lowers wages for farm workers.
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Another sticking point in Bennet’s efforts and any new 2023 bill is the “path to citizenship” for immigrant workers and their families. Republicans have called any path “amnesty,” using political firepower to overheat reform talks.
But while the current Senate bill includes a path to citizenship, it is a very lengthy process. In fact, according to Colorado Public Radio, the Bennet Act established “a program to give farmworkers and their families legal status after 10 years of employment.”
“It’s definitely not instant citizenship or anything like that,” a spokesperson for the United Farm Workers union told Boise State University.
Absolutely not, but the long time to citizenship isn’t what bothers most Republicans; it’s the concept itself. They just don’t want any avenues.
Bennet said his bill’s reforms are “indisputable.” Passing before the end of the year would be “better for American agriculture…family farms…farmworkers…and our country.”
It’s all true, and it’s all too hard; Bennet’s bill wasn’t included in the year-end budget agreement.
That means the best hope for immigration reform is — again — years away.