The US Labor Department has issued a report claiming that the 1986 Immigration Reform and Control Act ("IRCA") is failing to adequately safeguard American agricultural workers against a surge in illegal immigrants seeking employment.

The DOL's Office of Inspector General ("OIG conducted an audit of the effectiveness of DOL's certification procedures in satisfying the H-2A provisions of IRCA's temporary agricultural guestworker program.

The report states that several studies show a surplus in agricultural workers and the reports findings are based on the assumption that these studies are accurate (though it is far from universally accepted that there is a surplus and many say that, in fact, there is actually a severe shortage).

The DOL pulled a sample of Fiscal Year (FY) 1996 H-2A certifications and found that neither the SESAs' efforts nor recruiting efforts required of employers resulted in significant numbers of U.S. workers being placed in agricultural jobs for which foreign H-2A laborers had been requested. The report also claimed that only 2 percent (252 of 10,134) of the sample of agricultural job openings for which growers had requested foreign workers were filled by domestic workers.

Unfortunately, the DOL study, like DOL reports on the Labor Certification program and the H-1B programs in the past, fail to address the realities of the labor market and assume that there is a huge pool of American workers being passed up for jobs while aliens are being hired. The American labor market is the tightest it has been in most of our lifetimes. Most people who are seeking jobs can find them and low paying agriculture jobs are very unattractive to most American workers because higher paying, less arduous positions are readily available throughout the country.

John Getek, the Labor Department's assistant inspector general for audit noted correctly that the H-2A program is "characterized by extensive administrative requirements, paperwork and regulations." Not surprisingly, most employers would rather avoid the process and hire American workers. Those that use the H-2A program are probably using it as a last resort and only because finding American workers willing to work for the wages that make running an agricultural business viable is impossible. The DOL does not acknowledge the fact that for decades American farms have been under severe financial pressure and paying substantially higher wages could push these farms out of business. The 2% rate of hiring US workers is not surprising given this reality. Unfortunately, the Department of Labor would rather push wages up to a level that would make US workers switch from other types of jobs to agricultural positions even if that meant that these farms would go out of business.

The DOL and farm organizations do agree, however, that the H-2A program is broken and needs to be reformed or eliminated and replaced.

A summary of the DOL report can be found at http://www.oig.dol.gov/public/reports/oa/1998/h2a_semi.htm.