White House: Immigration Bill Would Boost Agriculture, Rural Communities

"Immigration legislation pending in Congress would create jobs in rural communities and increase exports of fruits, vegetables and other products, the Obama administration said Monday as it tried turn up the heat on Republican opponents of the bill.  In a White House report issued Monday, the administration made an economic case for the stalled immigration bill by emphasizing the legislation’s impact on farm towns, typically bastions of GOP support.  The bill would ease a shortage of U.S.-born farmworkers by expanding a temporary worker visa program and create a path to citizenship for farmworkers already in the country illegally, the report said.  Those changes would give growers a more stable workforce, add badly needed jobs in sparsely populated parts of the country and generate tax revenue, said U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack." - Kathleen Hennessey, L.A. Times, July 29, 2013.