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Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2021

Floor Speech

By: Jim Costa
By: Jim Costa
Date: March 18, 2021
Location: Washington, DC
Issues: Employment and Affirmative Action Agriculture and Food Immigration

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Mr. COSTA. Madam Speaker, I rise to support the bipartisan Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which is an opportunity to provide meaningful reform that we have been waiting for, for years.

This measure is supported by a bipartisan coalition that includes not only the United Farm Workers and other labor organizations, but a majority of farm organizations across the country. What this is really about is an opportunity to fix a part of a broken immigration system.

I want to thank not only Chairman Nadler, but also Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren and Dan Newhouse for the hard work that they have done to bring this legislation to the floor, bipartisan support on both sides of the aisle.

Let me begin with the fact that food is a national security issue. It is a national security issue. Less than 5 percent of America's population is directly involved in the production of food and fiber that feeds our Nation. That partnership is between farmworkers and farmers and dairy men and women.

I know because my family represents a third-generation family. Farmworkers are some of the hardest working individuals you will ever meet. I know because I worked side by side for years growing up on my family's farm.

It is simply wrong that they be subject to living and working under a shadow of uncertainty and fear of being deported. That is not right.

This bill is not about the border. The border has been a problem for decades. It is not about amnesty. This is an earned basis to have legal status in America. I have spoken with the hardworking men and women and their young children who work to put food on America's dinner table, and I've seen the hope in their eyes, the hope that we can pass this legislation to provide them legal status, hope for a normal life free of the dread of family separation that too often happens with deportation that hangs over them every day when they go to work, hope for a chance to change their reality and reshape their story.

This measure involves protections. It involves E-Verify. It involves an opportunity to reform an H-2A program for a reliable workforce for American agriculture. We owe it to the individuals who do so much for us. I ask that you support this legislation.

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