Washington apple growers latest group feeling burden of illegal immigration crackdown

Many Washington apple growers are posting "pickers wanted" signs (Seattle Times photo by Steve Ringman) to make up for the shortage of immigrant labor they claim is caused by stricter immigration policies in places like Arizona and Alabama. Normally about 70 percent of the the state's farmworkers are in the country illegally, but tougher immigration laws have made many Mexican and other migrant workers stay away, Fox News Latino reports.

Apple growers believe this could have been one of the best years ever until the shortage of workers forced them to leave fruit on trees, Fox reports. Many growers have tried unsuccessfully to fill worker shortages with domestic workers, only to have little success, similar to Alabama farmers.

Jeff Pheasant and Darla Grubb, fourth-generation apple growers near Soap Lake, about 120 miles east of Seattle, told Fox their orchard was two weeks behind: one week because the weather forced a late start this year and the other because they had no pickers. Pheasant Orchards usually has about 65 workers at harvest peak, but this year there were only 50, many of whom were inexperienced. (Read more)

Some Washington growers are relying on inmate labor to collect what remains of their harvests. Prison labor is significantly more expensive costing growers to pay $22 an hour per inmate, a cost of three times that of an experienced picker, Elisa Jaffe of KomoNews reports.