Immigrant Farmworker Legislation (AgJOBS)

Overview: The “Agricultural Jobs, Opportunity, Benefits, and Security Act” (AgJOBS), is the result of several years of negotiations between key farmworker advocates, particularly the United Farm Workers of America (UFW), and the agriculture industry. NCLR believes that the AgJOBS bill represents the first real opportunity to improve conditions for farmworkers in many years, and strongly supports AgJOBS.

The AgJOBS bill has two components. First, the bill would create an earned adjustment program for undocumented farmworkers who would be eligible to apply for temporary immigration status based on their past work experience, and who could adjust to permanent resident status upon satisfaction of the program's prospective agricultural work requirement. Second, the bill would reform the existing H-2A foreign agricultural guestworker program by reducing much of the “red tape” of which farm employers have long complained, while at the same time preserving and enhancing key labor protections for the guestworkers. For the first time, H-2A workers who are abused and cheated by their employers will have recourse to the federal courts and will have a remedy if they are threatened, blacklisted, or otherwise discriminated against by their employer for exercising their rights under the law. The bill has broad bipartisan support in both the House and Senate.

NCLR works closely with Farmworker Justice www.farmworkerjustice.org, an organization created to protect the rights of farmworkers in the U.S.

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