Editorial
Farm jobs begin immigration reform

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President Bush's immigration-reform proposal provides critical impetus to efforts that have been building in Congress.

But the administration should take care not to upset the existing — and hard-won — coalition of usually opposing forces supporting a bipartisan proposal by Sens. Larry Craig of Idaho and Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts, who are joined by 48 other Senate co-sponsors.

The Agriculture Jobs, Opportunity, Benefits and Security Act (AgJOBS) would create a guest-worker program only for the farm industry. Workers who can demonstrate they already have worked in U.S. agriculture can seek permits and, after six years more of documented work, could apply for legal residency.

It also calls for stronger enforcement of laws prohibiting employers from hiring people without legal-resident status.

The most remarkable aspect of the proposal is who supports it: The National Council of Agriculture Employers and the American Farm Bureau and the United Farm Workers Union. The measure has bipartisan sponsors in the House and has committed support from Republican Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert.

That's serious political heft that should not be squandered.

The Bush initiative reflects concepts in three different congressional proposals, including AgJOBS, that seek to reform federal policy that has been overwhelmed by the reality of Mexico's impoverished classes and American businesses that rely on a work force in the United States without legal authority.

AgJOBS applies only to agriculture workers, while Bush's proposal applies across industries and to people not yet in the country.

Craig, who attended Bush's announcement last week, suggests Congress approve AgJOBS to "road-test" some of the Bush administration's broader concepts. The Bush administration should take him up on it.

A major area of potential disagreement, however, is that Bush's proposal does not clearly lay out a path to permanent legal status. But without the path in AgJOBS, the coalition surely would fall apart.

Workers who have put in more than six years of approved, documented work in jobs that established Americans don't usually want should earn consideration for permanent residency.

AgJOBS is a smart start, a pilot project even, for the necessary larger conversation about immigration reform.

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company