President Announces Executive Order on Immigration, No Special Provisions Included for Farm Workers
In a televised address to the nation Thursday evening President Obama announced that he was taking executive action to protect nearly 4 million undocumented immigrants from deportations. The executive orders signed by the president would defer action on legal proceedings to some 3.7 million illegal immigrants who have children or spouses who are American citizens. The orders would also expand the previously announced deferred action program for people brought to the U.S. as children, covering some 300,000 more immigrants. Immigrants will be able to begin applying for this deferred action program 180 days from the president’s announcement.
The president’s action contained no special provisions for farm workers and left unchanged the H-2A visa program. At the same time, farm worker activists estimate that some 250,000 farm workers would be able to apply for deferred action under the provisions announced by the president.
NCFC, the Agricultural Workforce Coalition (AWC) and other farm groups, in anticipation of the president’s announcement, reiterated the need for Congress to act to address agriculture’s labor crisis.
“For what appears to be a small subset of current agricultural workers, the President’s actions will alleviate some pressure in the short term but does not offer these workers, their families, their communities or their employers the long term assurance they deserve,” said NCFC President & CEO Chuck Conner in a statement. “To mix metaphors, we as a country should not bring people out of the shadows only to let them twist in the wind.”
“To meet future agricultural labor needs, the H-2A program remains broken beyond repair and a new, streamlined and market-based visa program is needed,” he continued. “Both of these goals—certainty for current workers and a working visa program for the future—can only be achieved through congressional action.”
Unknown at the moment is how the president’s action will impact the chances of legislation—basically, how Republicans in Congress will react to what is an unprecedented use of executive authority.
“A debate over the process used to enact these immigration changes, even when loud and emotion filled, will ultimately be healthy for our democracy. But when that debate is over, America’s farmers still face an unprecedented labor crisis,” Conner concluded. “We hope that the start of the 114th Congress gives policy makers the chance to turn the page on this issue and we urge all of them—Republican and Democrat, Congress and the Administration—to find a way to come together and work collaboratively to address agricultural immigration reform.”
Also unknown are the procedures for undocumented immigrants to apply for deferred action, what actions might be required of employers and whether eligible immigrants will even apply. NCFC and the AWC will be working over the coming weeks to clarify some of these variables; in addition, the coalition is also drawing up work plans to hit the ground running on immigration when the 114th Congress convenes in January.
NCFC Submits WOTUS Comments to EPA
Late last week, NCFC submitted comments to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on the proposed redefinition of the term “waters of the United States” (WOTUS) under the Clean Water Act. NCFC’s was one of over half a million comments submitted to the docket before the deadline last Friday. In addition to the organization’s own comments, NCFC also joined on joint comments with the Waters Advocacy Coalition and the Pesticide Policy Committee as well as comments submitted by a large collection of farm groups.
As you may recall from previous NCFC Updates, earlier this year the EPA and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers released a proposed rule to revise the definition of WOTUS for all Clean Water Act programs. If left unchanged, the rule would greatly expand federal regulatory jurisdiction over farms and ranches across the country.
The NCFC comments state, “[w]ithout question, the Agencies must substantially revise the proposed rule. We believe the scope of these revisions is such that the Agencies need to engage in direct conversations with the stakeholder community on possible creative, productive solutions prior to re-proposing the rule.”
The EPA and the Corps will now sift through and consider the comments as they prepare to issue a final rule in the spring of 2015.
Congress Returns Post Election for Freshman Orientation and 114th Leadership Elections
In the wake of Republicans capturing the Senate and expanding their existing majority in the House, Congress returned to Washington last week for a post-election lame duck session that will last at least through mid-December. The immediate order of business was an orientation for the freshmen members of Congress and organizing caucus and committee leadership for the 114th Congress.
Top House and Senate leadership were returned virtually unchanged (excepting of course that the majority and minority in the Senate flipped); committee leadership, especially for agriculture, saw more change though. In the House, Representative Frank Lucas (R-Okla.) was term limited out of the agriculture committee chairmanship; the new chair in the 114th Congress will be Representative Mike Conaway (R-Texas). Over on the Senate side, current Senate Agriculture Committee ranking member Senator Thad Cochran (R-Miss.) chose to assert seniority to become the Senate Appropriations Committee chair meaning that Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) will become take over the reins of the ag committee in January. Also of interest to co-ops, Representative Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) gave up his chairmanship of the House Budget Committee to lead the Ways & Means Committee which has jurisdiction over tax and trade policy, among other areas.
With all of these procedural moves completed, Congress on Thursday left Washington for a week long recess around Thanksgiving. When they return to the nation’s capital in December, they face a long list of must-do items before the end of the year. This includes passing either a temporary continuing resolution or a more permanent omnibus bill to fund discretionary federal government spending past the expiration of the current CR in mid-December. In addition, a number of expired or expiring tax provisions will likely need to be renewed as well before the new year.
Upcoming Events:
- 86th NCFC Annual Meeting—February 11-13, 2015—Paradise Point Hotel, San Diego, Calif.