UFW says AgJobs could legalize 100,000 undocumented farmworkers on Central Coast
WATSONVILLE — Efren Barajas, second vice president of the United Farm Workers, snuck into the country by hiding in the trunk of a car of a friend who drove from Tijuana into the U.S. border city of San Ysidro.
He knows what it’s like to be an illegal immigrant, which is why he said he is backing AgJobs, a program that would allow 1.5 million farmworkers to become legal residents in the United States.
"I was a farmworker once. I know the feeling. Your whole life changes when you get your documents," said Barajas, 50, who became a U.S. citizen in the mid-1990s after sneaking across the border in 1974 to pick almonds in Modesto. "You constantly live in fear that immigration is going to get you, and it’s one of the worst feelings"
And yet Barajas’ support for AgJobs carries a twist. Its backers are hoping it is incorporated into the immigration overhaul that’s currently being debated in the U.S. Senate, even if it means setting up a temporary guest worker program that would offer no path to citizenship for thousands of foreign workers.
Such programs, in fact, go against everything UFW founder Cesar Chavez believed. During his life, he would often caution against such programs, saying they only made workers more vulnerable to exploitation in exchange for low-wage jobs.
But Barajas said times have changed, and that if Chavez were alive today, he would feel good about the trade-off if and when it occurs.
"Under AgJobs, we’re talking about legalizing 1 million farmworkers," said Barajas, whose job on the Central Coast is to secure union contracts for farmworkers, whether illegal or legal. "I don’t think that’s a bad deal"
If the AgJobs passes, Barajas said an estimated 100,000 undocumented workers could become legal residents in Santa Cruz, Monterey and San Benito counties.
UFW leaders say it is their best shot at improving working conditions in fields nationwide, and especially in California, where 92 percent of workers are foreign-born.
Activists complain that immigrant farmworkers are sometimes underpaid, not paid at all, overworked, exposed to pesticides, given poor housing or subjected to other abuses.
Some aging members of the last temporary-worker push — the Bracero Program, which operated from 1942 to 1964 — worry the plan could repeat past indignities.
Many oppose AgJobs and temporary guest worker programs that cater to the undocumented farmworkers. Mark Krikorian, executive director for the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., is one of the critics.
"It’s nothing but amnesty for illegal aliens," he said. "What we need to do is consistently enforce the immigration law and phase the sanctions in over a period of several years so farmers can adjust to it and act accordingly. It will give farmers time to change their plan. The problem is, many farmers have factored into their calculations the availability of cheap foreign labor, and that’s not the only way to do business. And when that changes and when farmers have no choice, wages will go up and they’ll become resourceful businessmen"
But the UFW is sticking by AgJobs, which was brokered between growers and the UFW over the past decade. Under its provisions, it would open the way to legal status for those who have worked in U.S. agriculture for at least 150 days over a two-year period ending Dec. 31, 2006. The program would be capped at 1.5 million.
After that, new farm laborers would be recruited in their home countries and brought to the U.S. under an existing guest worker program, but would be able to stay for only 10 months at a time. They would not automatically qualify for citizenship and would have to wait an estimated eight years just to get in line.
Even then, they would have little chance of winning permanent residency, because a new point system would give higher priority to people with education and skills.
Farmers who claim labor shortages left fruit rotting on the ground last summer say it is a fair agreement. Union leaders are dismayed newer recruits will not get a pathway to citizenship.
But "we’re willing to work through the process so we’re at the table," said Diana Tellefson, executive director of the UFW Foundation, a nonprofit organization linked to the union. "We’re going to fight tooth and nail to make sure that workers have the protections they need"
To get its message across, the UFW is holding a series of town hall meetings across California next month.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.