WASHINGTON, June 1, 2016 - Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump
are competing for the farm vote in California, but they’re taking completely
different paths to win the support of producers in the country’s largest agricultural
state.
Clinton has doubled down on immigration ahead of the June 7
primary, but for Trump, it’s all about the water. Both are issues that can make
or break the state’s farmers who produce everything from garlic to milk.
Clinton, the Democratic front-runner, is drawing a bright
line between herself and Trump on immigration and it’s resonating with some of the
state’s agricultural producers.
“He’s not only talking about ripping families apart, is he?”
Clinton said at a recent campaign
stop in Salinas, the heart of the largest fruit and vegetable farming area in
the country. “He is talking about deporting more than one half of the 2.4
million farm workers who help feed our country.”
Chuck Conner, president of the National Council of Farm
Cooperatives and a deputy agriculture secretary during the George W. Bush
Administration, said she is talking about an issue that has farmers very
concerned: losing their labor force and not being able to attract new workers.
Farmers have two primary needs when it comes to labor,
Conner said. They need legislation that would protect undocumented farm workers
from being deported and help them stay on the farms where they are needed. And
they need a new guest-worker program that would allow farmers to more easily
bring new help across the border.
The primary legal way in which farmers can employ non-U.S.
citizens is the H-2A guest-worker visa program, but it’s virtually useless in the
face of the massive number of workers that California’s farmers need, said
Barry Bedwell, president of the California Fresh Fruit Association.
“We have over 440,000 agricultural workers (in California),”
Bedwell said. “If we took 70 percent of those and had to run them through an
H-2A program, it wouldn’t work.”
The Trump campaign did not respond to requests for a
reaction to Clinton’s comments on immigration, but the presumptive GOP
presidential nominee was also on the campaign trail in the Golden State last
week. He made an appeal to farmers at a speech in Fresno on
Friday.
“We’re going to solve your water problem,” Trump said,
surrounded by a sea of printed green signs that read “Farmers for Trump.”
Conditions have improved in California this year, but the
state has been in a drought for more than four years.
“You have a water problem that is so insane. It is so
ridiculous where they’re taking the water and shoving it out to sea,” Trump
continued. “And I just met with a lot of farmers who are great people and
they’re saying, ‘We don’t understand it.’ ”
But California Republican Rep. David Valadao understands it
very well. He’s been trying for more than a year to get legislation through
Congress that would prevent river water from flowing into the ocean and divert
it to farms. His efforts have been stymied by concerns in the Senate that his
legislation would stop state and federal regulators from protecting the Delta
smelt and the Chinook salmon under the Endangered Species Act.
The House gave Valadao’s latest bill, the Western Water and
American Food Security Act, a new boost last Wednesday when it approved it as
an amendment
to the Senate’s Energy Policy Modernization Act of 2016. The House then passed
the entire bill, sending it to conference committee.
Clinton, who supports the kind of comprehensive immigration
reform that would provide a way for undocumented workers to stay in the U.S.,
did not address California’s water shortages during her stop in Salinas.
Trump, who famously called Mexican immigrants rapists and
murderers last year and said he would make Mexico pay to build a border wall, has
also made a point of criticizing the Border
Security, Economic Opportunity, and Immigration Modernization Act (S. 744),
a comprehensive immigration bill passed by the Senate in 2013 with very strong
support from the U.S. farm sector. The House never voted on the bill.
A passage on
Trump’s website reads: “When politicians talk about ‘immigration reform’ they
mean: amnesty, cheap labor and open borders. The Schumer-Rubio immigration bill
was nothing more than a giveaway to the corporate patrons who run both
parties.” Senators Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Marco Rubio, R-Fla., sponsored
the legislation.
While Trump may be popular in rural California for other
reasons, his repeated call for a massive border wall and the deportation of
millions is not what many farm owners want to hear because of their labor
needs.
“In terms of comprehensive immigration reform, clearly she
is in line with the needs of production agriculture in California,” said
Bedwell about Clinton. “This will be one of the many factors that are weighed
as people try to make decisions on which way to go. But there’s no question,
we’re getting in a tighter and tighter labor situation, particularly during
harvest.”
Frank Muller, who grows tomatoes, peppers, almonds and
walnuts on his California farm, said he isn’t yet supporting any candidate, but
he and other producers are paying close attention and Clinton is saying the
right things about immigration.
“Immigration should be a topic that’s front and center. I
welcome any kind of realistic plan that either candidate is going to come
forward with that works,” said Muller in an interview. “(Clinton’s) message is
a more realistic message for what agriculture needs.”
Trying to deport the entire population of undocumented
immigrants – estimated at more than 11 million people – is both unrealistic and
“would be an ugly chapter in our history,” he said.
“We want these people to be legitimate, to be working here
legally and fairly,” Muller said.
One of the biggest threats to the farm labor force is a
proposed national E-Verify system to validate the status of workers. If the
U.S. were to enact an E-Verify program before protections for undocumented farm
workers are in place, the impact would be devastating on the agricultural
economy, farm sector representatives said.
On E-verify, Trump’s policy is clear: “This simple measure
will protect jobs for unemployed Americans.”
#30
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