North Fork farmers had a chance to voice their concerns to U.S. Congressman Tim Bishop (D-Southampton) at a meeting Saturday in the Long Island Farm Bureau offices in Calverton.
"What do we do for farm labor in the long term?" asked Joe Gergela, the group's executive director, recounting an hour-long discussion with Mr. Bishop. "Let's suppose a path to citizenship was established as a component to immigration reform. People would eventually graduate from the lower sectors of the economy and get educated and get better jobs.
"So where do we stand five, 10 years from now?"
Despite this year's strong labor pool, the local farm community is calling for a strong guest worker program, in which unskilled workers could come to the U.S. seasonally and then return to their home countries.
"It's very important to us," Mr. Gergela said, assured that the congressman would bring the message to Washington.
Mr. Bishop said he was confident an immigration reform bill similar to one that was defeated in Congress in 2007 could be signed into law sometime this year. Such a bill would include revamped visa policies, with the likelihood of new guest worker and seasonal worker programs, he said.
"This is an example of really one of the underlying fallacies of the forces that argue against immigration," Mr. Bishop said. "Here is a case where there's a sector of our economy that is enormously dependent on this work force, they cannot recruit native people who were born here in sufficient numbers, yet they can recruit immigrants.
"And so if we fail to reform our immigration system, we will hurt a significant sector of our economy."
Citing a study undertaken by Dowling College MBA students and released in November, Mr. Bishop said some 800 farms in New York could go under and about 22,000 native jobs related to the farm sector could be lost if the country undertook an enforcement-only immigration policy.
He said the major sticking point on the failed immigration bill of 2007 was what to do with the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants already in the country. Mr. Bishop favors a path to citizenship, with conditions.
On the prospect of passing immigration reform this year, and how such a bill could impact the country's farm sector, Mr. Gergela said, "People have to decide. Do we want to import workers? Or import food?"
mwhite@timesreview.com