New York farms need immigrant labor program, senators hear

Farms in this country are hit the hardest by the laws against immigrant laborers. Something must change and soon. - - Donna Poisl

By MARC HELLER, TIMES WASHINGTON CORRESPONDENT

WASHINGTON — The federal government’s stepped-up enforcement of immigrant worker laws could put hundreds of farms in the Northeast out of business unless Congress updates a guest worker program, a key agricultural lender in the state said Tuesday.

Robert A. Smith, senior vice president of Farm Credit East, told a Senate Judiciary subcommittee that more than 1,700 Northeast farms are vulnerable to increased enforcement by immigration authorities, putting as much as $2.4 billion in annual sales at risk and threatening to take more than a million acres of farmland out of production — in most cases, he said, because workers appear to the farmer to have legitimate documentation when in fact they do not.
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