USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins says the administration is looking at ways to improve the efficiency of the H-2A guestworker program and make it easier for growers to use. Rollins made the announcement during a meeting of the Western Governors’ Association held in Santa Fe, N.M.
The administration will have more details coming soon as well as announcements from the Department of Labor and the Department of Homeland Security.
“We have all been directed by the president to come up with solutions to fix and solve this problem immediately,” Rolins says.
Rollins acknowledges Congress will play a key role in larger H-2A visa reform.
“It’s a congressional act,” she says. “Significant changes can’t occur without our partners on the Hill.”
But she also adds H-2A reform is a bipartisan issue, and while long-term fixes are on the table, there’s an opportunity in the short term to alleviate the burden of the application process.
“The idea that the farm I visited this morning, here in New Mexico, Silver Leaf Farms, they provide 250,000 heads of lettuce to local schools and communities here in New Mexico,” she says. “They don’t have the capability when they need to hire a couple more workers for their harvest to hire and spend tens of thousands, if not more, on legal help to get them through.”
Rollins says the administration seeks to improve the processes to ensure growers have the workforce needed.
“How we can streamline the current process, obviously within current law, to make sure it is much more efficient, that those we are bringing in from Mexico or from wherever, from around the world, to work the fields, to ensure we have the labor force we need, that they’re able to do that efficiently, effectively and not cost prohibitively,” she says.
