Changes Planned In Visa Program For Farmworkers

The Bush administration proposed changes yesterday to a little-used agricultural guest-worker program that would provide incentives for farmers to hire foreigners legally.

The proposed changes include a system for calculating how foreign workers are paid and centralizing the application process under the federal government.

Immigration advocates said the changes would weaken rules that protect workers under the program. The administration defended the proposal as a direct response to Congress's failure last year to change the nation's immigration laws and as a way to address a shortage of legal farmworkers.

"It is precisely because Congress failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform that the president directed executive agencies to take a closer look at the programs they administer," said Leon R. Sequeira, the assistant secretary of labor for policy. "Our goal here is to make the program work so that agricultural employers will use it to hire more workers legally."

The proposed rules do not require congressional action and can take effect after a 45-day public comment period.

About 75,000 foreign workers participated in the H-2A visa program last year. Meanwhile, 600,000 to 800,000 undocumented laborers worked on U.S. farms illegally, the Labor Department estimates.

Perhaps the most significant change to the visa program would be a new method for figuring wages for foreign farmworkers.

The current rules are intended to ensure that foreign workers are not paid wages that undercut those paid to U.S. workers. But the wage scales have been criticized by some who claim that they do not accurately reflect market wages by occupation, skill level and geographic location. The new system would use data compiled by the Bureau of Labor Statistics' occupational employment survey, which is used to calculate required minimum wages for other visa programs administered by the department.

The changes would also require employers to file visa applications with the Labor Department, eliminating the role of state agencies.

The proposed changes would increase the number of days a farmer is required to spend recruiting U.S. workers for jobs before filling them with foreigners, to 75 days from 45. They also would require contractors that recruit foreign workers to post bonds with the federal government. And they would prohibit employers from passing on processing fees to foreign workers and would increase fines for abusing workers.

Bruce Goldstein, executive director of Farmworker Justice, said the proposed changes would do away with much of the Labor Department's enforcement of the current rules. And he said wages were likely to decrease. He said the Labor Department should do more to enforce rules already on the books.

"Rather than spend its resources to lower wage rates, the Department of Labor should have announced a campaign to actively enforce workers rights under this program," Goldstein said.