An agricultural leader says he hopes the new Congress and President can provide a legal solution for foreign farm labor. Craig Regelbrugge with AmericanHort says last year’s Farm Workforce Modernization Act was the first labor bill to pass the U.S. House in twenty years, but it died with no action in the Senate, and that means reforms are still needed. “We need reforms that allow our experienced-but-unauthorized current workforce, which is half of the current workforce incidentally, to be able to attain some sort of legal status with authorization to work.”
Regelbrugge says they can be flexible on the details of a labor bill, but farmers need a way to stabilize the current workforce and provide for future workers.
