Bishops call for end to 'exploitation' of undocumented farmworkers

Published: 2008-04-02

TUCSON, Ariz. (CNS) -- Expressing "deep concern for the men and women" who labor in the fields of southwestern Arizona and northern Mexico, the bishops of Tucson and Mexicali, Mexico, have issued a joint statement calling for legislation to end "exploitation of the undocumented farmworker." Tucson Bishop Gerald F. Kicanas and Mexicali Bishop Jose Isidro Guerrero Macias urged passage of the Agricultural Job Opportunity, Benefits and Security Act, a bipartisan bill in the U.S. Congress known as AgJOBS, which they said would be "a very positive step toward reversing discrimination." The bill, they said, enjoys broad support from both employers and workers' organizations and would streamline and improve the H-2A agricultural guest worker program, giving workers the right to appeal in federal court for enforcement of their rights and to receive higher wages. The bishops said their March 28 statement "was inspired by our experiences in September of last year when we visited a farmworker project sponsored by Catholic Relief Services, the U.S. bishops' overseas relief and development agency, and our two dioceses in Yuma, Ariz., and San Luis Rio Colorado, (in the Mexican state of) Sonora." "We visited the workers in the fields," the statement said. "We saw the communities in Mexico in which they live. We listened to farmworkers and employers share their needs and their dreams." Known as the nation's "winter salad bowl," the Yuma area supplies more than 90 percent of the lettuce sold in the U.S. from November through February and this "requires a huge pool of readily available labor," the bishops said.

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