Agriculture companies in California are being forced to develop and deploy labor-saving machinery and techniques because reduced illegal immigration is allowing American farmworkers raise their poverty-level wages, according to Los Angeles Times.
But the double-dose of good news — more productive technology and higher American wages — is threatened by farm industry lobbyists who are pushing Congress to approve a much greater inflow of cheap-labor H-2A visa workers. An amendment approved last week would allow many more farm companies to ignore Americans workers and instead to hire cheap-labor from foreign-labor brokers. -- More...