New rules for H-2A visa program

U.S. immigration officials expanded a key guest worker program that affects laborers that have come from several Latin America countries.

The H-2A visa program facilitates the hiring of temporary foreign agriculture workers and was recently expanded to include migrants from Nicaragua, Ecuador, and Uruguay. The new rules would obligate companies to “make a greater effort” to fill those jobs with U.S. workers but also permit higher wages and greater protection for immigrant employees. The new regulations- which roll back restrictions implemented during the Bush administration- include providing employees with a copy of their contract as well as ensure that worker housing is not substandard.

The changes come after a January study highlighted the abuses against foreign sheepherders in Colorado who worked under the H-2A program:

“There are close to 300 sheepherders who are confined to their place of work, receive salaries far below the minimum established by law and are housed in precarious trailers, without electricity or running water,” Jennifer Lee, managing attorney of Colorado Legal Services’ migrant farm worker division and one of the authors of the report, told Efe.


She said the shepherds “are a practically unknown and unrecognized labor force that works in solitude, (enduring both) cold and hot weather, for an average wage of less than $2 an hour”…

The interviews revealed that 66 percent of these workers are from Peru, 12 percent from Mexico, 10 percent from Bolivia, 10 percent from Chile and the remainder from Nepal.

On a related note, a report released this week analyzed Census data and concluded that the number of illegal/undocumented immigrants dropped by about one million between 2008 and 2009.

Image- CBS News
Online Sources- Migration Expert, ABC news, la Opinion, LAHT, CBS News