WA state says it will check farm workers documents

Washington state officials say they have agreed to screen potential farm hands for immigration violations before referring them to jobs, after the federal government threatened to cut millions of dollars from a program that matches workers with jobs.

However, state officials say they still won't use a federal verification system to confirm that farm workers' documents are valid, and farm groups say the state's concession does little to ensure a legal work force for farmers.

"They're not going to find out any more than a farmer if the worker is actually legal," said Dan Fazio, director of employer services for the Washington Farm Bureau.

The dispute centers on the federal H-2A guest-worker program, which allows farmers to recruit workers from foreign countries if they can prove there is a shortage of legal, local workers. More growers have turned to the program in recent years amid a nationwide labor shortage, despite long-standing complaints that it's too cumbersome.

Under the program, state work force offices must advertise jobs locally and refer workers to the employers, in order to prove whether a worker shortage exists.

The U.S. Department of Labor quietly notified states late last year that they must verify the local workers' documents before referring them to the fields for work, either by completing the federal I-9 form saying a person is authorized to work in this country, or by using a federal computer system known as e-verify.

Many states, including Washington, balked at the change, citing their shrinking budgets, burgeoning workloads and the potential for discrimination lawsuits.

In a letter to Gov. Chris Gregoire in August, the Labor Department threatened to cut federal money for Washington state's WorkSource offices if they refused to comply.

The loss, about $14 million a year, would have gutted activities at some 60 WorkSource offices that help match workers and jobs around the state, said Sheryl Hutchison, spokeswoman for the state Employment Security Department.

"This would have been an enormous cut," she said. "We're doing what we need to with the paperwork process to satisfy the Department of Labor."

Hutchison said the state would complete I-9 forms and keep them on file. The state will not submit the forms to the federal government for verification, she said, and farm employers still will be required to verify documents themselves.

The Labor Department has approved the state's plans, she said.

Fazio said the new step does nothing to ensure the workers are in the country legally or prevent farmers from being penalized for hiring undocumented workers.

"If the worker gives a fraudulent ID, which I'm told is pretty easy to do, we're still going to be in a position where we're asked to hire fraudulently documented workers," he said.

Other states that had initially recoiled from the requirement, including Virginia and Louisiana, have also changed their position since the federal government threatened to cut money for state programs.

Erik Nicholson, Pacific Northwest director for the United Farmworkers of America, said he was disappointed by Washington state's new position, fearing that legal workers could be discriminated against in the process.

He also said both employers and workers are frustrated with federal tactics to target illegal workers without providing alternatives in the form of substantial immigration reform.

"Instead, we get these piecemeal punitive measures that absolutely penalize workers who are not here with legal status, but who have been long-term assets to farms in Washington and nationwide," he said.

Some 1 million people labor in U.S. fields, an estimated 70 percent of them in the country illegally. U.S. farmers hired only about 77,000 foreign workers through the guest-worker program last year, though that number is expected to rise.