Dianne Feinstein's "Emergency Agriculture Relief Act of 2008": mini-AgJobs

Senator Dianne Feinstein's robotic quest to help growers in California and otehr states obtain cheap labor continues as she will apparently offer the "Emergency Agriculture Relief Act of 2008", as described here:
[It] would provide temporary limited legal immigration status to experienced farmworkers who must continue to work in agriculture for five years after enactment.

Workers, however, could not obtain legal permanent resident status (green cards), the program would be capped at 1.35 million workers nationwide and eligibility would be limited to those who can prove agricultural employment for at least 150 days or 863 hours or who have earned at least $7,000 working in agriculture during the 48 months prior to Dec. 31, 2007.

The plan would also require emergency workers to labor at least 100 days per year in agriculture for each of the next five years, pay a $250 fine plus processing fees and restricts them from receiving social security benefits based on prior illegal employment.
Note that she's continually tried to enact the more sweeping AgJobs amnesty. Feinstein spokesman Scott Gerber pretends that the endless propaganda about crops rotting in the fields is anything other than an attempt to gain cheaper labor. You can send a FAX about this here; perhaps you could suggest that she sticks to doing things like this instead.

Comments

“We have essentially privatized the immigration policy of this country, and left it in the hands of California’s growers.” -- Philip Martin, UC Davis Notice he uses the word 'essentially'--it's not the formal, official policy of the U.S. Yet. Feinstein wants to FORMALIZE the sickeningly anti-democratic idea of turning immigration policy into 'what do big growers want'? This latest AgJOBS-lite has a 'cap' of a mere 1.35 million!? Shouldn't all of these cousins just be called Big Ag Corporate Welfare? The H1-B cheerleaders, of course, want the same thing for the technology industry. They couldn't care less what YOU want. It's their government, not yours. The global corporations rule, not the people. Their vision of 'America' isn't even a sovereign nation-state, just an economic zone.