Stop Guestworker Expansion
by DCDave

The provision is not in the House version of the same appropriations bill so the differences are now being worked out in a conference committee. The conferees with their phone and fax numbers are listed below. A call to each of their offices on Friday revealed that their remains much to be done on the bill. This provision in particular is still being hashed out at the committee staff level, I am told, and has not yet been addressed by members and their staffs.

When calling the members' offices ask for the aide who handles either immigration or agriculture issues. I found the aides I was able to talk to receptive. The main points to make are first that nothing of such great significance should be handled in this way. No hearings have been conducted in either house and the measure has gone virtually unreported upon. It could not stand public scrutiny. Second, I believe, is the illegal immigration issue. Even Democrats, who might be more receptive to the labor-abuse angle, realize that they need Republican votes to win. Direct them to the web site of the Federation for American Immigration Reform. It stresses the illegal immigration angle, but it also links into the site of the California Rural Legal Assistance Fund, that stresses labor abuse. You might also refer them to the August 10, 1998, Washington Times article by Susan F. Martin, Director of the Institute for the Study of International Migration at Georgetown University entitled, "Just What We Need, More Illegal Immigration." A readily available editorial from the St. Petersburg Times of July 26 entitled "The Farmworker Rip-off Act of 1998" is also online. You could copy that and fax it to them. The CRLAF site suggests other strategies as well.

Informing one's own Congressman and Senators of your concern would also be beneficial. The CRLAF site has phone numbers for all Members of Congress.