Oppose a new Bracero Program

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Take action @ http://action.ufw.org/h2a1017 Rep. Goodlatte has just introduced the “Agricultural Guestworker Act” in the Judiciary Committee. This bill creates a modern day Bracero program and would undermine the wages and working conditions of all agricultural workers. This bill comes at the same time that other members of Congress are trying to use the appropriations process to expand the scope of the current H-2A program in a way that will harm both US and immigrant workers. Help the United Farm Workers and a broad coalition of almost 150 groups oppose this bill. Instead of taking agriculture back to the 1940’s, join us in asking Congress to refocus on the one thing that could stabilize agriculture quickly -- providing farm workers already laboring in the US with a path to lawful permanent residency and eventual citizenship. The unwise expansion of the H-2A program and the creation of a new guestworker program would result in the displacement of US agricultural workers. Neither would protect the farm workers who do some of the most difficult work in America. Instead they would import guestworkers who have even fewer labor and political rights. The efforts by Congressman Goodlatte to replace the H-2A program with a new agricultural visa system will create even more unfairness and dysfunction in our already broken immigration system. Even worse, it would deprive US citizens and lawful permanent residents of job opportunities. It does this by weakening the laws that requires US citizens and legal residents to be offered these jobs first. The bill expands access to guestworkers for even more employers, such as those in year-round processing. It would also lower farm workers’ already poor wages and allow exploitative conditions for hundreds of thousands of new guestworkers. Instead, Congress needs to do the one thing that could stabilize agriculture quickly -- support the Agricultural Worker Program Act of 2017, authored by Senator Feinstein and Representative Gutierrez, which would provide undocumented agricultural workers with legal immigration status and an eventual path to citizenship.  E-mail your congressmember today @ http://action.ufw.org/h2a1017