I talk with farmers recently in Florida who indicate that e-verify program will hurt them. It's the same story I hear in Kansas, Alabama and North Carolina.
They claim that if they are required to use e-verify without a sustainable guest worker program in place that agriculture will collapse.
The problem they say is that Americans are unwilling to do the job in many cases. And that they need illegals to get the crop in. This is particularly true in places like Florida and Hillsborough county, for example, which has a $1 billion dollar Agriculture industry. Farmers there even admit many of the people working in strawberry and tomato fields are "probably illegal."
Like they don't don't know or something? The fact is they really don't want to know!
This is also one reason why the Farm Bureau is fighting against laws which would restrict illegal immigration and mandate e-verify laws .
It's time that farmers and people in agriculture take a stand for America and do the right thing.
Small businesses in Kansas also love illegals. They hire them at part time at poverty wages and then pass on the health care and social welfare costs to the state.
Our nation must address the illegal immigration issue. Which means we need to address the issue as well. It should be mandatory that all businesses in Kansas use e-verify.
It only cost a little time on a computer to check a persons social security numbers against the database.
Why small business and farm organization in Kansas and Florida persist in bucking the system on e-verify is beyond me.
We also need to stop blaming the feds and assume some personal responsibility. We should look at what we can do as individual to help people out in the local community
With respect to jobs many farm operations can hire someone in their community right now to help them. We all know someone who is out of work.
I know a half dozen or more young people in Rush County, Kansas who desperately need work! Yet farmers won't hire anyone! They have many reason why they won't do it. None of it makes much sense to me. Not when they moan and complain about all the work they need done all the time! If that is the case hire someone who needs a job!
Its begins where your at.
In Rush County, Kansas some businesses recently advertised for job applicants then for whatever reason wound up not hiring anybody? Look if you got a job that needs filled for Pete's sake give someone a chance to work!Its something that will benefit you and the local community.
Moreover make sure that person is legal and is here in our country legally.
"The real jobs program for America is local! Why look to the federal government to decide this", said Ted Fedders of Charlotte, N.C., a retired hog farmer for 34 years. "The tendency now is for business to scale back employment, cut benefits and make the people they have employed work harder. What we need to do is hire people and put them back to work", he said.
Its good for them, the community and the entire nation.
North Carolina ranks number one nationally in the production of flue-cured tobacco and sweet potatoes; second in the production of Christmas trees; third in the production of cucumber and strawberries; and, fourth in the production of cucumbers and upland cotton. The greenhouse/ nursery industry is the number crop producer in North Carolina, followed by tobacco, soybeans, corn, cotton, sweet potatoes, wheat, peanuts, blueberries, potatoes, tomatoes, cucumbers, and a wide variety of other crops.
Broilers, hogs and pigs, turkeys, and cattle and calves are the main animals raised by North Carolina farmers. North Carolina’s number one commodity (plant or animal) is broilers – chickens raised for their meat. North Carolina ranks second in the nation in the production of hogs and pigs, trout and turkeys; and, fifth, in the production of broilers (see http://www.agclassroom.org/kids/stats/northcarolina.pdf).
Robert Tilford
Charlotte, N.C.
