TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- When Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis announced his “no excuses” proposal for tightening the U.S.-Mexico border on Monday, he unfurled a plan that depends on employing more law enforcement and erecting more walls but left out any mention of the federal program that allows businesses to bring in temporary migrant workers legally.
“No American wants to work harvesting crops and doing manual labor, so we need a guest worker program,’’ said Rick Roth, a fruit and vegetable farmer in Belle Glade and a Republican state representative. “The problem is, they need to update the program to allow for workers year-round and give employers more flexibility.”
Roth is one of hundreds of employers in Florida who collectively hired 25,451 guest workers under the H-2A visa program in 2022. Florida farmers rely on the program more than any other state, and the temporary workers now pick most of Florida’s citrus crop.
Roth and other say any conversation about illegal immigration should include talk of expanding the federal programs because they not only provide a relief valve to the border problem but allow businesses to address the labor shortage with migrants.
Jamie Fussell, director of labor relations for the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association, said the federal program “is in dire need of a modern overhaul to align with current agricultural practices and to remove outdated barriers that restrict access for Florida seasonal growers.”
While the H-2A program is “cumbersome and expensive,” he said, it remains “the only tool in the grower’s toolbox to securing an adequate agricultural workforce due to the lack of domestic workers.”
More than 120 businesses, including 20 from Florida, are asking for the president to intervene. In a letter to President Joe Biden last week, the American Business Immigration Coalition Action asked him to expand a special category of immigration permits for individuals to fill positions in areas of the country facing labor shortages. Unlike the H-2A program, which requires congressional action to change, they want the president to use his executive authority to provide temporary work permits.
“The immigration system is too broken to ignore,’’ wrote business leaders in the construction, manufacturing, agriculture, landscaping and restaurant industries. They cited 10 million job openings across the country at the end of April and blamed “two years of lost immigration” as a contributing factor to their labor shortages.
Two Republican governors propose an idea
One plan proposed by Republican Governors Eric Holcomb of Indiana and Spencer Cox of Utah would allow states to “sponsor” migrant workers for temporary work permits.
Cris Ramón, the senior adviser on immigration for UnidosUS, a nonprofit Latino advocacy organization, said there already is evidence that expanding temporary worker programs releases the strain on border crossings.
The expansion of the H-2A program between 2001 and 2011 “was one of the key reasons” for the decline in illegal Mexican immigration, said Ramon, who wrote a policy paper for the Migrant Policy Institute on the H-2A program. A similar study by the conservative Cato Institute reached the same conclusions.
As labor shortages have made it difficult to hire domestic workers to pick fruits and vegetables and do other crop-related work over the past two decades, the federal program has grown, filling 11% of the 1.1 million agriculture jobs in this country, according to one study.
Roth Farms used the program for the past three years, joining with three other companies to bring in 330 male foreign workers ages 20-35, and Roth said they have been happy with the outcome.
“They do amazingly good work,’’ he said. “But they also cost 30% more.”
Federal requirements benefit workers
The federal government requires employers to provide transportation to and from the work site, housing and a minimum wage above the state wage.
“Use of the legal H-2A guest worker visa program is at an all-time high, and it shows no sign of stopping,’’ said Fussell of the FFVA. But the renewed interest at the federal level “has yet to translate into passage of a meaningful solution.”
Ramón said that smaller farms often overcome hurdles by contracting with foreign labor recruiters and, like Roth, work together to sponsor immigrant workers. But he added, achieving a work-around “is not easy.”
The majority of individuals who have taken advantage of the program have been Mexican nationals because the Mexican government recognized the H-2A program was a legal pathway for Mexican citizens to work for the season, return to Mexico, and then keep coming back, he said.
“If you make it easier for people to come here, you will have those routes be effective,’’ he said. “When you take a hard-line position, and are not focusing on the legal migration system, you are making it harder to manage migration within the United States writ large.”
Florida’s legislation on immigration
Samuel Vilchez Santiago, Florida director of the American Business Immigration Coalition, a bipartisan advocacy group seeking comprehensive immigration reform, said the Farm Workers Modernization Act that passed the U.S. House last year but was stalled in the Senate would have allowed for more H-2 visas while also providing a pathway to legalization for farm workers.
“We really want solutions, not politics,” he said. He lamented the fact that Florida’s new immigration law, which takes effect on Saturday, has sent a chill through the state’s agricultural industry where, he said, an estimated 46% of its labor force is comprised of undocumented workers.
“What we’re hearing from the employers across the state is that their workers are very afraid of this new legislation and how it may impact them and their families and a lot of them are either considering leaving or are already leaving,’’ Vilchez Santiago said. “For the ag industry, the question is, will their workers come back to Florida in the next agricultural season?”
Speaking to supporters in the border town of Eagle Pass, Texas, on Monday, DeSantis proclaimed that Florida’s new law had already had its intended effect.
“You get stiff penalties now in the state of Florida and it’s having a huge impact,’’ he said. “People know we’re just going to do it legally. We’re not going to mess with this.” His campaign did not respond to requests for his position on the H-2A program.
