Most of the workers who hand harvest the crops in our multi-billion dollar agricultural industry are immigrants. The majority lack legal documentation—despite our dependence on them. On May 14th, the Agricultural Job Opportunities, Benefits and Security Act - AgJOBS was reintroduced in the Senate by Sen. Diane Feinstein (SB 1038) and in the House by Reps. Berman and Putnam (HR 2414). AgJOBS is a bi-partisan bill agreed to by both farm worker advocates and major agricultural employers to address the agricultural immigration crisis. It allows immigrant farm workers to earn the legal right to permanently stay in this country by continuing to work in agriculture and reforms the current H2A guestworker program, providing growers with a safe and stable workforce.

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AgJOBS is the most important piece of legislation affecting farmworkers in decades. While it has been introduced for several years and passed in the Senate, it has been stopped through a filibuster, or by inaction in the House of Representatives.

AgJOBS Benefits Farm workers and Growers
AgJOBS represents a major compromise between farm worker advocates (led by the United Farm Workers) and major agricultural employers to address the agricultural immigration crisis, negotiated between them after years of conflict. It is endorsed by major farm worker and agricultural industry representatives, and religious, civil rights, and community organizations. The proposal contains two main parts:

1. an earned legalization program enabling both undocumented and H2A guest workers to earn temporary immigration status with the possibility of becoming permanent residents by continuing to work in agriculture;
2. a revision of the existing H2A temporary foreign agricultural worker program.

Ag-Jobs Means Fairness
The ability to legalize immigration status is key to enabling farm workers to come out of the shadows, to speak up about abuse, and to advocate for better working and living conditions. It makes dangerous illegal border crossings unnecessary for hundreds of thousands of workers and allows farm worker families to stay together and fully participate in the society they help feed.

AgJOBS only applies to workers in the agricultural industry and does not address the needs of other undocumented workers. While this is a historic compromise, it is only the first step to broader reform of our current immigration system.

Summaries of AgJobs Bill 2007
Click Here to Read a Summary of the AgJobs bill from Farmworker Justice