Editorial: Congress listens to agriculture

Thursday, Nov. 11, 1999 | 10:13 a.m.

When Americans think of the influence that agribusiness has in Congress, thoughts often turn to subsidies that giant producers, such as Illinois-based Archer Daniels Midland, are able to snare from the government's ethanol program. But agribusiness isn't limited to just the Midwest, it also reaches into the South and the West Coast where growers use their clout in statehouses and in Congress to pass legislation that allows them to take advantage of migrant farm workers.

So it probably shouldn't come as too much of a surprise that agribusiness is seeking to pass legislation in Congress that would allow illegal aliens, who have worked in this nation for as few as 150 days, to be granted legal status. As the Sun's Martin Kuz noted in a Tuesday story about the pending bill, only farm workers would be eligible and they could obtain permanent legal status only after working at least five years in agriculture. This is hardly a charitable and selfless piece of legislation advocated by agribusiness. Critics are correct to note that this bill, in effect, will create an indentured servant class that will unfairly tie them to the farms and essentially prevent them from taking jobs elsewhere. It is hard to imagine that working conditions -- already intolerable for many migrant workers -- would stand to improve in such servitude.

While the agribusiness bill exploiting migrant workers is being greeted warmly, a sensible immigration measure sponsored by Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., virtually is ignored. Reid's legislation aims to aid an estimated 350,000 undocumented immigrants -- 22,000 in Nevada -- who once held legal status but now face deportation. About 3 million aliens met a May 1988 deadline for a federal amnesty program, but hundreds of thousands asserted that the government impeded their attempts to be eligible, causing them to miss the cutoff date. So lawsuits were filed on their behalf to have their applications considered by federal courts. The 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, though, subsequently voided late-amnesty applications last year, noting that Congress passed a 1996 law which removed the power of federal courts to have jurisdiction over the appeals. This ruling meant th e immigrants -- some of whom have lived here for a decade -- were out of work and faced deportation. Reid's bill would bring immigrants some relief and res tore to the courts the ability to rule on late-amnesty applications.

Unfortunately for the immigrants who missed the amnesty deadline, many of whom have established roots in this nation, there isn't a huge industry that doles out big campaign contributions enlisting their cause. Instead of favoring agribusiness and its interests, Congress would do better if it gave a fair hearing to Reid's legislation that seeks to redress an inequitable application of immigration laws.