Chapter 6 - Farm Labor and Immigration Policy

Abstract

From Europe to New Zealand and even parts of Africa and Latin America, as domestic workers move out of agriculture, farmers and the labor contractors that serve them seek workers from lower-income countries abroad. In the United States, wave upon wave of immigrants fueled the expansion of labor-intensive crops, particularly in California and other western states. This chapter explains how immigration expands to fill an excess demand for farm labor. Farmers grapple with a political process that often is resistant to permitting large numbers of low-skilled foreign immigrants into their countries legally. Because of this, immigrant farm workers often are unauthorized, eking out a livelihood in places that demand their labor but where the threat of apprehension and deportation is a daily reality. Policies to reform this system frequently are a patchwork of compromises that produce unintended consequences for immigrant workers as well as for the societies in which they work.