Monday, October 17, 2011

Farmers say stricter immigrant screening could hurt their businesses

If immigrant workers are not harvesting, the farmers won't find many local people to take those hard, hard jobs. This will affect all of us. - - Donna Poisl

BY MICHAEL MATZA, The Philadelphia Inquirer

BIGLERVILLE, Pa. - Toiling methodically in a vast green orchard, Saintasia Elysee reaches into the branches of dwarf apple trees and pulls out rosy winesaps. Her husband, Kenol Laurent, drives a tractor that lifts the heavy bins of harvested fruit.

The next day at Hollabaugh Bros. Farm, they were picking pears.

Haitian immigrants, Elysee and Laurent keep a home in the Caribbean nation and return annually to rural Adams County, Pa., for the summer and fall harvests. About 25 other immigrant workers, mostly from Haiti and Mexico, also come back year after year, laboring about five months for $15 to $20 an hour.
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