>> my time is colleague from california. thanks to all of the witnesses for your testimony. mr. wenger, from the perspective of california, you have given your testimony that the e-verify program without a solution for the current workforce would be disastrous, and i have believed the same thing. you've also said as to solutions that it has been and will be impossible to find and deport the current unauthorized farm work force and replace it with new workers properly autze combination program and improved h2a. any solution you have said must deal somehow in a practical and humane way with the current workforce.

why do you believe that it will be impossiblent undocumented wo with millions of new temporary workers? >> they just aren't out there. if you were to take the folks who are here and don't have current documents and you find out who they are through the e-verify program and if you're to remove them to the desert wouldn't be adequate labor supply, even in mexico, to fill those jobs. i want to also say these aren't unskilled jobs. a lot of theks here, they're driving pieces of equipment that are worth more than the most expensive mercedes. i mean they are highly skilled people that understand what they are doing, so it is paramount that we find a way to find those who are already here that don't have legal documentaon able to go through some system to get that legal credential, that w visa to allow them to be able to work here. >> in talking about the skill set, my district that i represent in california is

tyas wl. especially in the south part of our county. and i remember a number of years ago when i was in local government visiting with the mushrooms and visiting with the mushroom cutters. incredibly skilled work. i think at that time, that was, you know, 20 years ago they were paying $20 an hour to those people cutting and i couldn't have done it. can you describe some of the other kinds of skilled work? we talk about this as unskilled labor, but i'm wondering if you could describe the kind of skills that are necessary and that are possessed by the current workforce and why it might be very difficult to replace those skills with an entirely new workforce. >> certainly. for a lot of our commodities in california but throughout the country, they're being much more

mechanized and so you have to have a skill set that takes years and years to try to learn that. if you operate this machinery in an effective and safe manner, but today with such a demand for locally produced food, what you're seeing in your area, we're seeing with urban agricultural throughout california, talking to some of my contemporaries and other state farm bureaus. what we are seeing throughout this country, folks going for more of the commodity areas and putting a certain amount of production into seasonal fruit and vegetable production and now all of a sudden they are figuring out we need somebody to have that hand/eye coordination that understands how to pick the fruit and harvest the vegetables at the right time. whether it's picking strawberries, if you don't pick a strawberry at the right time, it is either overly ripe and it will wreck everything else as it perishes in the basket, the other strawberries around it, you have to pick it at the ripeness at the right time. can't be too green. can't be overripe. it takes the hand/eye coordination that takes years to learn, whether it's a plum, whether it's a peach.

all the things that we want our kids and grandkids to eat, talking about more fresh fruits and vegetables. that is a highly skilled -- you're exactly right, congressman lofgren. we have one of the board members they do plums and peaches. they pay their workers on piece rate, and they'll work every other day and the workers go from farm to farm and come back. when they work at a piece rate they're making $30 to $35 an hour. they know what they're doing, they get the right fruit in the basket. they take care of it the right say so it can get to the market and be the highest quality it can be. and it's not just grunt labor. it is somebody skilled in what they're doing. >> just to summarize, i know my time is running out, as mr. black pointed out, that we've had these hearings and we've wrung our hands repeatedly, but what you're saying is any plan that doesn't deal with taking the current work force and somehow converting them to a

legal status is not going to completely work, is that right? >> we have a number of people in this country have to figure out a way to give them some kind of an adjustment of status to allow them to be in this country to work. you're absolutely right. >> thank you, mr. chairman. my time has expired. >> i thank the gentlelady. gentleman, mr. ross? >> thank you, mr. chairman. let me lay the predicate for my questioning so that you gentlemen know where i stand. i represent a district in central florida, predominantly rural, very agriculture. my county leads citrus production in the state. we have a lot of specialty crops, a lot of row crops. we have a tremendous demand for labor, and i concur with several of your testimony today that this is an issue that must be addressed. it has been debated. it has lingered, and no action has been taken, but i have growers and harvesters back home who cannot meet their labor demands, who are sincerely concerned because the department of labor cannot meet their demand and the labor forces they need. they're ineffective. they're inefficient. we have litigation out of control and now we're looking at

how we can keep our growers from trying to farm their property for houses instead of crops and to keep them from taking the crops overseas because it's the only way they can make a living. having said that, we have some wonderful proposals on the table today. i think chairman smith has a very good one. i think mr. lundgren has a good one. i want to address some issues with both. i'd like to go with the commissioner and then mr. wenger and then mr. wicker on portability. is portability something that's absolutely necessary in order to have an adequate guest worker program in this country? commissioner? >> congressman, did you say portability? >> portability, yes. in other words to go from employer to employer once they're over here or to stay with one employer. >> absolutely. absolutely. >> portability is necessary. >> absolutely. >> mr. wenger? >> absolutely. you have to have portability or it doesn't work. >> mr. wicker? >> dga supports structured portability so workers can move from one certified farmer to another. >> and mr. goldstein i know you

commented on this but i don't know if you have any comment with regard to portability. >> maybe portability plus. [ laughter ] >> let me ask you then something else. with regard to chairman smith's bill. he talks about caps in his, and we can't get from the labor department what the adequate er we just can't. we don't have statistics on that for obvious reasons. would it be something that maybe we should look at having a ceiling, a ceiling and then a floor? somewhere in between, the usda would do a study and say we believe that this many number of workers are absolutely necessary? is that something that you think is a workable alternative to address that issue? commissioner? >> congressman, i believe that's in the field of play for sure. we've got to have better -- we have to have better data in georgia. >> right. >> one of the things we have things we have discovered in this study, our data is woefully

underserved. we need to determine what those needs are and if we could get that ceiling in the proper place. i think that's a good rate. >> we will touch the third rail of immigration and take this away from immigration and call it what it is. it is an economic tool necessary to keep our economy, local economy, national economy at work, then i think we might be able to have an intelligent talk about this and pass some legislation. if we can pass the legislation we can start gathering the data necessary to find out what our labor needs are on a basis. mr. wenger, how do you feel about the caps? >> i think caps are dangerous, because we have heard from those folks who are in h2a and if they could fix h2a, they can bring their workers in. as we look about seasons and folks up in the northeast and northern areas, i think if you have a cap then those in the southern parts of this country are going to be better served quicker. and others won't. we need agriculture across this country. the other thing is, any time you have a cap, and if you say that you have a certain amount of motry d go back, has that been used up, even though they can be in the country for ten months, they were only there for three.

historically a lot of workers like to come in, where they can go across the border. they like to come in for what they are good at and then go home. have we used up one of the key spots we thought we had a worker in country for ten months but we only had them in for three or four. i think caps, as long as we can have a "w" visa type of scenario, where they're agricultural workers, allow them to go where the work is. some could be in transition. they are not all going to be working today. maybe they are in transit from getting across the border to getting up into maine or getting up into washington state or new york. so i think caps are dangerous. >> thank you, mr. wicker, if i have time for one more question. how do you feel about caps? >> on the caps we have a de facto cap now the bureaucracy that -- >> right. >> -- chokes all of the programs. >> yes, it's ineffective, yes. >> so, you know, the cap and the american specialty agricultural act is 500,000. should it be higher? maybe.

let's pass that and get started. i know that if our country makes a commitment and puts the right statutory language in place that we can build a program that works for farmers and is accountable for workers so, yeah, we can have a program that treats workers well. >> thank you mr. wicker. mr. chairman, i see my time is up. >> yes, you'll have a chance for a second go round. the gentlelady from texas is recognized for five minutes. >> i thank the chairman and the ranking member for courtesies extended. just have comments and a quick question and then a pointed question to mr. goldstein if i could. i have been working on these issues, i'm not from any of the states of the particular witnesses but certainly i join my colleagues in the importance of trying to address the questions dealing with farm workers. and in addition, i've seen the

plight of many of the farming communities, large farming communities as relates during these harsh times the loss of product, if you will, in the field. and i consider america -- one america to be the bread basket of this world and want to ensure that not only are the people who are in heed here in this country eat and eat at prices that they can afford, but that we are able to serve those around the world. i'm frustrated, however, because we are having this hearing and many of you may have heard me over and over talk about comprehensive immigration reform which would entail of course, even though we've discussed the farm worker visa separately, it would discuss a whole comprehensive approach. when we talk about individual visas, you can imagine in this time of unemployment, no matter how much you may make the argument are americans coming to pick products, there will be those who say you're taking jobs away from americans.

straight across the board if you give me yes, nos and then i'll get to mr. goldstein within my time. mr. black, does your state have housing school requirements for migrant workers, farm workers? >> no, ma'am. we abide by the h-2a. the one that's the final focus, the 33 producers in georgia, i believe that are using h-2a, they abide by those requirements. >> you say you don't provide housing? i said housing and schooling for the children of migrant workers. housing for the families and schooling. >> those are the individual responsibility of those crews that come to work with the farmers. they are living in the community. >> all right, so it's the burden of the migrant workers, they provide their own housing and -- >> yep. >> are their children allowed to go to school in georgia? >> yes, ma'am. but what would be important to know there is whether or not the family's actually with them or

not. >> okay. i have to move quickly. >> whether or not they're there for that period of time. >> all right. i thank you. i have to move rather quickly. do you have any american workers in your fields? u.s. -- >> very, very limited numbers. >> do they come when you call them? >> i'm sorry? >> do they come when you call them? >> well i'd tell you the best example i have of that, congresswoman, is that one of my growers in tipton, georgia, this past year, under his requirements of h2a and hiring people through 50% of the contract period processed 1,500 local workers, he was able to get eight of them to stay. >> okay. let me move quickly. mr. wenger, housing, schooling? >> currently, a lot of growers will provide housing, they see that as an attractant to get workers. >> not required? >> it is not required. schooling, if they have children that are there, they go to the public schools. >> it's open to them? >> yes. >> mr. wicker of north carolina? >> i can only speak to our h2a

workers and their families don't travel with them. the state department won't issue visas to travel with them. >> what about american workers for mr. wenger and mr. wicker? quick answers, please. >> it would be the same thing. schooling is available for -- >> no, american workers working in your business. >> yes, i mean sometimes there's housing with it but most of the time -- >> american workers, u.s. people, working in -- i'm asking you do they work in your business? are they in the fields picking product? >> we have some that went through the legalization process in '86 that are now citizens. >> okay, i'm not, mr. wicker -- >> yes, ma'am, we have u.s. workers working on the farm. supervisors -- >> native u.s. -- >> yes. >> -- workers. >> yes. local workers. absolutely. >> all right. mr. goldstein, what are the problems we should be looking at in this visa program? >> well -- >> thank you, gentlemen. >> the problems were actually discussed in a 1909 report by the commission on

country life, to teddy roosevelt and reported in the commission on migratory labor to president truman which said the same thing that the 1909 report said, and the same thing as the commission on agricultural workers said in 1992. we need to modernize labor practices, improve wages and working conditions to attract and retain the farm workers. stop relying on the desperation abroad to bring in vulnerable workers on restricted nonimmigrant visas. we need to stop, end the discrimination in labor laws against farm workers. farm workers don't get overtime pay. small workers don't even have to pay the minimum wage. we need to do to things to stabilize the work force and treat farm workers as human beings, and we desperately need immigration reform, because more than half the farm workers are undocumented. we should give them the same opportunity that this nation of immigrants has given to other people. to become immigrants, leading to citizenship so they have bargaining power with their

employees and they earn the right to become citizens who can actually vote and have an impact on the policies that affect them. >> thank the gentleman. mr. chairman, could a make a correction for the record something i said so i will not offend any population. i know the definition of native americans are those who are defined to have been here when all of us came. my question was trying to establish whether u.s. citizen, other than those who come from out of the country to work, were seeking these jobs, and so i think you answered some are and some are not. i thank the gentleman and i yield back. >> i thank the gentlelady. we'll go for a second round now. i'll start off with five minutes. mr. black, mr. wenger, mr. wicker, do you support programs so that you can exploit vulnerable workers? >> so that we could exploit? >> exploit vulnerable workers. one of the criticisms expressed by mr. goldstein was that the various programs rely on

vulnerable workers. i'm trying to ask your position on vulnerable workers and how your particular program does not rely on vulnerable workers, if that's the case. that's the case. how do you empower your workers to the program you envision for us to try and solve this problem? >> well, mr. chairman, no, we do not support anything that exploits vulnerable workers. >> how would they be empowered by the program you support? >> i think it creates a lot of opportunity in the marketplace. i think the portabilities, some of the things you were discussing earlier, being able to compete is an excellent step for us to take. >> mr. wenger? >> yes, no. we don't -- the interesting thing is if you're worried about workers being taken advantage of, give them a document so they can travel and vote with their legs where they want to go, if they think they haven't been

dealt with correctly. you don't need to be a citizen. you need a legal work document that empowers you and in california, we have a minimum wage. we pay overtime for agricultural work. and if you're really concerned about the plight of those who are living in the shadows and they're undocumented, give them a legal document. it was interesting last year, last summer, as we were going over my son's graduation at cal poly and we came by a peachtree. every single one at lunch break had their phones out and they were texting and calling on the phone and talking to people. the people we have working in the fields today aren't somebody that's just stuck back in the shadows. given a legal documentation so they can come out of the shadows as far as being a workforce. there should be no reason that anyone should be taken advantage of. >> mr. wicker? >> no, we do not support a program that would allow exploitation. >> how are they empowered? what in your program allows them not to be exploited? let me put it that way. >> they come through orientation and they make many, many different worker rights groups. we have a collective bargaining

agreement at north carolina growers. they meet migrant health providers. they meet english as a second language providers. they meet wage an hour providers. lot of oversight and accountability. we give full disclosure. we keep records and provide wage statements and we comply with the law. that's how you make sure workers are not exploited. >> so as you may know, i'm kind of frustrated by this whole thing. i was here in the '80s. i was the republican floor manager of simpson masoli. i wrote a lot of what is now the h2a program from the '80s hoping that would work. i look now and see it didn't work. we haven't had the protection of the farm workers that i believe we should have. if they had a legal status and they were out of the shadows of illegality, and so i'm trying to put the best program forward that i think can pass and can actually work, but then i hear things like a cap.

things like a cap. anybody here know how many tourists we have come into the united states per year? 50 million. so what i were here to advocate an arbitrary cap of 25 million? doesn't relate to the flow. doesn't relate to the market. doesn't relate to anything except we in congress decided to have 25 million tourist visas here, even though the demand is 50 million. it makes more sense to establish whatever program we accomplish without a cap, but on an annual basis reflects the need as proven by the agriculture committee, approved by the department of agriculture, and then reviewed on a yearly basis. if in fact it's a million it's a million. people seem to be afraid of saying that, but it seems to me it ought to be what the market

tells us and then be real with respect to that and give people the mobility and the marketplace so that in fact they're not wards of a particular employer and find themselves back in their home country when they have a legitimate gripe with the employer that they have and an ability to join unions if they want to or not join unions. so i try to deal in the reality of what's out there and to me, caps is like saying you know we have 50 million visitors that come every year, but we are going to stay at 25 million. why? because we think 25 million. maybe we ought to see what the market is and deal with the market in that way. and whatever program we adopt, my hope in authoring my bill was to have flexibility and with the legal status of the people involved in the program comes the protections of the already existing law which they can rely

on. gentle lady from california? >> a couple of comments. i wasn't here in the congress during the reagan years. but i think the problem we have to talk about it wasn't enforced. the real problem was that there was no mechanism for new people to come in. it was insufficient capacity to meet our needs, whether it was agriculture or whether it was nuclear physicists. that was the problem. and we're still grappling with that problem. my colleague from texas mentioned the need for broad reform of the immigration laws. and before i was ever an elected official, i used to be an immigration lawyer and i taught immigration law. i can tell you that the system is a mess.

it's a mess when it comes to agriculture, it's a mess when it comes to family law. it's a mess when it comes to starter visas for high-tech. it needs reform. i hope we can do that. it's not going to be in the remainder of this congress, but it's an obligation i hope we can address and it would be wonderful to do it on a bipartisan basis. i think looking at this ag area, the idea -- and i credit everybody trying to address this, but the idea that we could actually get -- let's say we put a cap of 500 -- 1,000. you wouldn't find 500,000 people who apply and to be interviewed in the offices to get to american farms in time to avoid the destruction of agriculture. the idea of a cap is not even worth discussing because it won't work. there aren't enough people to apply. we have to talk about how do we

help the people who have worked in the field to gain a legal status that allows them to continue to work which we need them to do, but also allows them the dignity and rights that they should have so that they can be treated fairly? i certainly would not suggest any of the individuals here aren't fair, but that happens in the wide world that we live in and people need bargaining power and they need the capacity to stand up for themselves which you can't do if you're living, you know, in the shadows if that's how we want to describe it. so i do understand that immigration is a subject that has become to my mind almost irrationally hot as a topic in america when we just should be thinking of what's the right thing to do for our country?

and when i think about how our country has been strengthened by immigration, my grandfather was an immigrant. and what can you -- the whole country we have been strengthened by the people who had the get up and go to get up and go. and come to america and dream american dreams and become americans with us. and that's what this discussion should be about, instead of turning our back on our history. we should embrace it and make sure it's a part of our future. and the ag discussion because i think just a small part of that discussion. now, having said that, i want to talk about the economy because we have a tough economy now. and even though we've got a largely unauthorized workforce in the field, they're contributing to the economic wealth of the country.

when i look at, commissioner black, your testimony, you talk about a survey of respondents indicating that they had lost $10 million due to georgia's new immigration law. but if i'm reading the report correctly, you can just say yes or no, the survey was of 570 people who responded and reported their losses. but we don't know whether all those people were even farmers, and my understanding is that there are 48,000 farms in georgia. so the $10 million reported loss from the 570 who responded to the survey is not all that was lost in georgia if we have 48,000 farms. wouldn't that be correct? >> yes, ma'am. if i may explain the rationale, the methodology on the survey, rather than doing economic

models and extrapolating, we wanted to ask direct questions of our 800 respondents to the surveys, they were all farm earns. of the ones that -- that answered the economic impact question, that was the 500 number you mentioned. and we said 26% of those indicated losses that totaled over $10 million. >> i see. >> so that's roughly 125, 130 farmers. then one can extrapolate that however you might care, but we know that was the direct impact to those producers and their response. >> thank you. i know my time is up. i'll just note the university of georgia has done that analysis, and what they are saying is that the direct losses would be $140 million in the spring of 2011 for just seven of the key berry and vegetable crops.

and according to their study the direct losses would lead to an additional $250 million in indirect losses to georgia's economy for a total of $391 â.9+ they lose a tremendous competitive advantage and in fact, the resulting outcome has been that you almost incentivize the hiring of illegal workers. i guess if we had, you know, fixed costs and fixed price, then the adverse effective wage could be fixed into the formula for the grower's profits but that's not the case. this is a market-driven enterprise.

my question to the gentleman starting with commissioner black would be, what is your comment on the effective wage rate? >> congressman, it's a difficult issue when you look at a packing shed that might have some minimum wage jobs like sweeping the floor and yet, if you're forced -- that is an economic pressure that you place on a job like that having to abide by that adverse effective wage. that's why i really -- when we talk about the whole issue of wages in agriculture, one of the things that we have been able to do in our study is kind of explode the myth that we underpay people. >> right. >> those that are doing the productive work. but the facts are that there are some minimum wage jobs still to -- i