Hispanic Caucus in US Congress stalls all immigration measures

The Hispanic caucus in the US Congress has vowed to veto all narrowly tailored immigration measures. They will discuss only comprehensive immigration reform, or they will not discuss immigration at all.

The Wall Street Journal, a very right-leaning publication, criticizes Sen. Robert Mendez, a Democrat from New Jersey. Hispanic Democrats have promised to veto any H1B legislation.

However, Mendez vetoed legislation that would have increased the number of H2A agricultural workers allowed in the country. The current process for obtaining a H2A visa is onerous, and the caps are also artificially low. The WSJ article contends that three quarters of all agricultural workers in the US are in some violation of immigration regulations - perhaps the anti immigrant crowd should boycott US produce. WSJ also contends that the legislation in question, which was part of an amendment to a larger spending bill, had support from unions as well as businesses. Mendez alleged that the provisions were too business friendly.

At present, US farms need to hire agricultural workers. It's not clear that US-born workers could replace all the undocumented workers. It's also clear that the US political system favors incremental reform. Perhaps the Hispanic Caucus should be taking a softer line on immigration reforms targeted at a specific program. At least that way you get some of what you want. By maintaining the status quo with the guest worker program, which might as well not exist, the US is basically ensuring that a great proportion of agricultural workers will be undocumented.

If there isn't enough American labor available at a low enough price to fill the labor needs of America's farms, then either produce prices will rise, or the farms will move to Mexico (and prices will still rise because of higher transport costs). Of course, if the anti-immigrant folks boycott produce, then there will at least be more to go around for everyone else.