15 Oct 2011
Farmers Fear E-Verify Could Devastate American Agriculture
"E-Verify's opponents contend the system will destroy agribusiness by driving up costs, shrinking the workforce, and wreaking havoc on food production. When Hollabaugh hears a legislator say E-Verify will save American jobs for Americans, "I just want to throttle him," she said. "There are no domestic workers who want to do this work." Although farmhands do menial labor, she said, skills that experienced migrants have cannot be duplicated by just any cross-section of the unemployed. Don't get her started on the common suggestion to hire paroled ex-prisoners. "The insinuation that just anybody can do this work is not true," Hollabaugh said, and when a harvest hits, "we don't have time" for training."