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Kansas Proposes New Law Allowing Undocumented Immigrants to Work in Agriculture

Kansas Proposes New Law Allowing Undocumented Immigrants to Work in Agriculture

In Kansas, Democrats are opposing a new proposal that would allow illegal immigrants to work in agriculture.  It may seem ironic, but it actually makes sense. Kansas Republicans have taken particularly hard-line stands against immigration recently and have only put forth this proposal as a way of currying favor with agricultural business interests that need the workers. And Democrats are crying foul.

Recently, Republican governor of Kansas San Brownback passed legislation that makes it so US citizen minor children of illegal immigrants can't receive food stamps.  The Kansas secretary of state has also sought help from Arizona and Alabama in how to write its own anti-immigration bill.  Yet, all of a sudden, Republicans are proposing that illegal immigrants be given permission to work in agriculture in Kansas.

"This is profiteering," asserts Democratic Kansas state Representative Mike Slattery.  In states like Georgia and Alabama, farmers have been hard hit by fleeing immigrants abandoning the fields they'd normally work, leaving produce rotting.  Kansas Republicans, frightened by what this might mean for their corporate constituents, are seeking to gain support and votes with this new, seemingly "pro-immigrant" measure.

The truth is that what this move amounts to is hypocrisy.  At least there is one Kansas Republican nobody can call a hypocrite: Governor Brownback has come out against the proposed new bill.

There is a lot to be wary of with this bill.  True, it gives a sort of employment "safe haven" for some workers... but it doesn't guarantee a living wage for those workers, or worker's compensation when they're injured by negligent employers. And while their US citizen children will go to bed hungry at night for lack of food stamps, corporate fat cats will be crunching on increased profits.

Still, Democrats and immigrants' rights advocates have to aks themselves if opposing this bill is really in the immigrants' best interests.  Or is this a case where we could be cutting off our own nose just to spite our face? The fact is that this kind of legislation is a first step in the right direction - Democrats could see this as an opportunity to tack something like living wage legislation onto the existing bill and refuse to allow it to be pushed through without the addition.

We shall see what happens...

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