Farm worker shortage courtesy of Big Labor

A serious crisis is brewing in rural America--namely, a shortage of farm workers for planting, cultivating and the harvest in this crop year. The U.S. Department of Labor and state government officials are caving in to Big Labor, who resist the granting of H2 visas to temporary foreign workers, primarily from Mexico, to alleviate the shortage.

Big Labor knows nothing about agriculture and doesn't care to learn. They do know about union organizing and dues collection, and that despite the fame of Cesar Chavez, they have been singularly unsuccessful in signing up farm workers. In essence, they are saying, "play our way or you don't play."

Farm groups are crying out for workers from New York to Colorado and everywhere in between, but are being ignored. The Bush Administration, is petulently ignoring the crisis as payback for rural areas failing to back its immigration amnesty program, and pressuring Congress to defeat it. So they've joined Big Labor in saying "play our way or you don't play."

The Colorado legislature passed, and the governor signed, a bill just this last week to provide for guest workers to come in on H2 visas, but will probably be trumped by the Bush Labor Department.

This is very shortsighted on the Bush Administration's part, and even that of Big Labor. In fact, if H2 visas were reliably issued and enforced. the illegal immigration problem would never has become the national crisis it is today. Most Mexicans would love to come to the U.S. just for the season, and make enough money to return home for the rest of year, where they really prefer to live.

It is economics that forces them to immigrate illegally. Most of the problem would be eliminated, or would never have come up, if Mexican citizens could legally and openly cross the border to work, and then return.