From Deseret News archives:
New farm labor: inmates
Scarcity of migrants putting the squeeze on West producers
Workers from Mexico have become more scarce, so the Sugar City, Idaho-based company's managers have a different source of employees: prison.
"We've gone as far as hiring the college students just to get through," Tom Sessions, a supervisor at SunGlo, told The Associated Press on Friday. "We got rid of that and got the inmates."
Idaho isn't alone in shoring up farmworker shortages with convicts. Colorado started a program this year.
States using inmates to augment crews picking fruits and vegetables highlight a reality in agricultural America: Hispanic workers are in tight supply. Jobs in the construction economy lure them from the farms, and the intensifying spotlight on illegal immigration along America's southern border has cut the number of prospective laborers willing to come north.
A comprehensive immigration reform bill pushed by President Bush collapsed Thursday in the U.S. Senate.
"I started immediately seeing if it would be possible to put together a border enforcement package along with a guest worker program for American agriculture," said U.S. Sen. Larry Craig, R-Idaho, long an advocate of the guest-worker plan. "Following the Fourth of July break, I'll explore the possibility of doing that in Congress."
Craig was among supporters of Bush's bill, which fell 14 votes short of the 60 needed to stay alive.
Among Northwest senators, Democratic Sens. Ron Wyden of Oregon and Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell of Washington state voted with Craig.
While Sens. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho, and Gordon Smith, R-Oregon, opposed the measure, both are more likely to support a scaled-back initiative that excludes controversial provisions some lawmakers said amounted to amnesty for 12 million illegal aliens.
Smith, who owns a frozen foods company, sponsored a 1999 AgJobs bill. It would have given permanent resident status to farmworkers who'd worked here for five years.
"The senator has said Congress needs to act first on border enforcement, then turn to a clearer path to citizenship and a jobs program that meets the needs of the economy," R.C. Hammond, a spokesman for Smith in Washington, D.C., told the AP when asked about the guest-worker program.
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