Options When It Comes To Fixing H-2A

If Congress does not come up with a comprehensive immigration reform bill,  "We probably won't get a legislative, congressional farm labor issue done as well,” Ag Secretary Sonny Perdue recently said.

He added that aside from immigration legislation, they have other options.

"We are working, regulatory wise, with the Department of Labor, Department of Homeland Security and Department of State to make the H-2A program much more workable, much more amenable to producers, decreasing the onerous problems they had with all the reporting and advertising and filing that made it somewhat unworkable. So, we are hopeful we can get a regulatory fix over H-2A, wile it's not the ideal, we hope until we can get a legislative fix, that will suffice."

Experts say it would help farmers in their quest for seasonal labor, but, it might not do much for operations such as dairy farms, which need a, more or less, permanent workforce.

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