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Oh great they couldn't pass amnesty for illegals so now they are trying to legalize it piece by piece under our noses.
Feinstein, Lofgren push for immigrant workers
Two of California's most immigrant-dependent industries - agriculture and Silicon Valley - are pushing narrow measures through Congress in an effort to employ foreign workers at opposite ends of the labor market, people who pick vegetables and the postgraduate engineers and scientists of Silicon Valley.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein attached a farm guest-worker program to the giant Iraq spending bill Thursday in a last-ditch effort to remedy a shortage of workers in California's produce fields as the federal government continues to crack down on illegal immigration and the political climate proves hostile to more sweeping measures.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, teaming with Republicans, is pushing several bills to give permanent residence to top engineering talent.
"It's an emergency," Feinstein said of the farmworker situation. "If you can't get people to prune, to plant, to pick, to pack, you can't run a farm."
Her addition to the Iraq spending bill would give temporary legal status to 1.3 million farmworkers over the next five years, but it would provide no path to citizenship or permanent residency. It passed the Senate Appropriations Committee 17-12 on Thursday.
Workers applying for the program would have to prove they had worked on U.S. farms for at least 150 days or 863 hours, or had earned at least $17,000 during the last four years. They would have to remain working in agriculture for the next five years, when the program would expire.
Citizenship on hold
The move marks an end for now to efforts to give farmworkers a path to citizenship after a sweeping immigration bill crashed in the Senate last June. Feinstein has been trying all year to attach a bill called AgJobs but has met nothing but dead ends
Feinstein, Lofgren push for immigrant workers
Two of California's most immigrant-dependent industries - agriculture and Silicon Valley - are pushing narrow measures through Congress in an effort to employ foreign workers at opposite ends of the labor market, people who pick vegetables and the postgraduate engineers and scientists of Silicon Valley.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein attached a farm guest-worker program to the giant Iraq spending bill Thursday in a last-ditch effort to remedy a shortage of workers in California's produce fields as the federal government continues to crack down on illegal immigration and the political climate proves hostile to more sweeping measures.
Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, teaming with Republicans, is pushing several bills to give permanent residence to top engineering talent.
"It's an emergency," Feinstein said of the farmworker situation. "If you can't get people to prune, to plant, to pick, to pack, you can't run a farm."
Her addition to the Iraq spending bill would give temporary legal status to 1.3 million farmworkers over the next five years, but it would provide no path to citizenship or permanent residency. It passed the Senate Appropriations Committee 17-12 on Thursday.
Workers applying for the program would have to prove they had worked on U.S. farms for at least 150 days or 863 hours, or had earned at least $17,000 during the last four years. They would have to remain working in agriculture for the next five years, when the program would expire.
Citizenship on hold
The move marks an end for now to efforts to give farmworkers a path to citizenship after a sweeping immigration bill crashed in the Senate last June. Feinstein has been trying all year to attach a bill called AgJobs but has met nothing but dead ends
