House passes bill to create pathway to citizenship for farmworkers in U.S. illegally and their family members

The U.S. House passed a bill Thursday that "sets out a path to citizenship for farmworkers in the country illegally and their family members, reports Siobahn Hughes of The Wall Street Journal. It passed 247 to 174, "with 30 Republicans in favor and a single Democrat against."

Nevertheless, the bill's fate in the Senate is uncertain, partly because it passed along with a bill to "create a path to citizenship for young immigrants known as Dreamers who came to the U.S. before the age of 19 and have lived in the country illegally, as well as hundreds of thousands of immigrants living in the U.S. under a humanitarian program that provides temporary protection to people suffering from extraordinary conditions like war or natural disasters," Hughes reports.

That bill's passage was narrower, by 288-197, and some Republicans lumped it with the farmworker bill, saying they would send the wrong message at a time when the U.S. is dealing with a surge in migrants at the Mexican border. “These bills are . . . advertising that people who come here legally are suckers, and we’re going to give preference to people who didn’t come here legally,” said Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin.

Hughes quotes Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Wash., a former state agriculture official who supports the bill: “The timing is unfortunate. It’s distracting people from what the issues are.” And she notes, "Agriculture Department data show that nearly 50 percent of hired crop farmworkers in the U.S. lack legal status." Cornell University offers experts to discuss both bills. One is Richard Stup, a farm-workforce specialist who serves as liaison between the industry and employment regulators and says the bill would be a major step toward stabilizing the nation's agricultural workforce.