Newhouse part of bipartisan group that reintroduces farmworker immigration reform bill

YAKIMA – A bipartisan group of lawmakers in Congress, including Rep. Dan Newhouse, reintroduced a piece of legislation this week that aims to reform immigration policy and agricultural labor.

The Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which was first proposed in 2019, would give farmworkers a path to legal status and citizenship, update the foreign guest worker program and implement a nationwide electronic verification system for farmworkers.

The bill passed in the House in 2021 and 2023 but failed to pass in the Senate both times. This year, it was proposed by Republican representatives from California, Idaho and Washington, and Democratic representatives from California.

Newhouse, a Republican from Sunnyside who represents central Washington, has been a co-sponsor since the start.

“The workforce crisis has come to a boiling point for farmers across the country,” Newhouse said in a news release. “Reintroducing the Farm Workforce Modernization Act sends a clear message to farmers that we are working hard to find solutions that ease the burdens brought on by the current state of the H-2A program.”

The new version has few changes from its predecessors. It includes funding for farmworker housing and establishes a portable farmworker visa as a pilot program.

Addressing immigration

The legislation is being reintroduced at a moment when federal immigration enforcement has ramped up. In the agricultural industry, federal actions have raised concerns that farmworkers could be targeted and deported, affecting growers’ ability to get their crops to market.

The proposal would provide a path to citizenship and legal status for farmworkers, and has support from the lawmakers in both parties and the United Farm Workers.

“This bipartisan compromise bringing together agricultural labor and employer groups would protect undocumented farmworkers from the threat of deportation and allow them to continue their essential work of putting food on Americans’ tables,” a United Farm Workers news release said.

Employers and farm owners are also looking for legal status for workers and support those steps. The Washington Growers League supported that part of the bill.

“The concept of legal status for bona fide agricultural workers is one of the pillars of needed reform of immigration law for agriculture,” said Mike Gempler, CEO of the Washington Growers League. “The fact that the Farm Workforce Modernization Act includes this concept is a major reason for the growers league support for the bill.”

The proposal would allow anyone who has worked at least 180 days in agriculture over the past two years to obtain Certified Agricultural Worker, or CAW, status.

That includes people who would otherwise be deported or have been granted a deferred departure or temporary protected status. It does not include people with multiple misdemeanors or a felony conviction.

CAW status would last 5 1/2 years and could be renewed by anyone who works at least 100 days in agriculture each year. Those workers would not be eligible for certain tax and public benefits.

There is also a path to citizenship. People who have worked in agriculture for 10 years before the legislation is approved could apply for a green card after four more years of CAW status. Anyone with less than 10 years of previous farm work would need to work for eight more years in the industry with CAW status.

How an immigration reform proposal will be received in Washington, D.C., remains to be seen. Gempler said President Donald Trump floated the idea of a legal status or avenue for farmworkers in April. While the Senate and House vote on legislation, Trump can veto laws unless they have a two-thirds majority in both houses.

Enrique Gastelum heads Wafla, an organization that facilitates H-2A applications for employers in the Pacific Northwest.

“Will the Trump administration, which has been quite focused on immigration enforcement, be willing to entertain reform proposals on a sector basis or comprehensively?” he said. “We’re not sure.”

H-2A reforms

The H-2A program is the current foreign guest worker program for agriculture. It allows employers to apply to bring in foreign workers seasonally if they can prove they don’t have enough local labor. Thousands of H-2A workers have been employed in the Yakima Valley over the last few years.

The program can be expensive for employers as they must provide transportation, housing and a legally defined wage. Domestic workers have been concerned that they are being replaced by foreign labor. At a recent United Farm Worker rally, several workers told the Yakima Herald-Republic they had a difficult time finding work.

Workers at Ostrom mushroom farms in Sunnyside, now known as Windmill Farms, previously accused the company of replacing local workers with foreign workers.

The proposal in Congress would update the application for H-2A workers, moving more of the process online. It would change the way H-2A wages are calculated and cap changes in wages at 3.25% for the next nine years, with new wage rules scheduled after year 10.

There would be opportunities for year-round industries, like dairies, to apply for H-2A workers. The new legislation would create a pilot program giving 10,000 foreign workers a portable agricultural worker visa, allowing them to move between U.S. employers while in the country.

This section of the bill received more criticism, particularly from growers groups and employers. Mark Powers, president of the Northwest Horticultural Council, praised Newhouse and other members of Congress for working on the issue, but said the proposed law was “insufficient to keep growers in business.”

Powers, Gempler and Gastelum all said that labor costs, which have risen for growers, need more work in this version of the bill. Gastelum said he was happy the proposal would allow year-round H-2A labor, but wanted to know more about how wages would work.

“We need more details and analysis done to know if these changes will result in sustainable labor costs over the long term,” he said.

Labor support

Besides bipartisan support, the proposal has employer and labor proponents. UFW President Teresa Romero has spoken in favor of the legislation.

“The workers who feed America have earned the right to stay in America, as Americans,” she said in a news release. “This bipartisan common-sense legislation will create an opportunity for them to do so.”

UFW represents farmworkers across the country, including in Washington. It has focused on the benefits of legal status for farmworkers, which is covered in the bill.

“Farmworkers are essential in feeding this country and deserve a path to legalization,” UFW Foundation Chief Executive Officer Erica Lomeli Corcoran said.

“Instead of demonizing them, lawmakers should provide a way for farmworkers to be recognized for the work and responsibilities they have fulfilled to become American citizens.”

There has also been opposition from grower and labor groups in the past, including Familias Unidas por la Justicia, a Skagit Valley-based farmworker union that said the citizenship pathway was too difficult and H-2A workers would continue to displace domestic labor.

FUJ has objected to the legislation’s E-Verify system that would be implemented in agriculture after the other parts of the bill were in place.

The union is concerned that such a program would lead to increased surveillance and deportations.