Dans Papers - May 25, 2007

You may not believe this, but Colorado now is going to have convicted felons from inside the State Prison harvest the farm crops around the state this fall.

Last year, tough immigration laws were passed in that state. They were so tough that most of the immigrant workforce in that state simply fled, either back to their homes south of the border, or to neighboring states where the law is not so tough.

The result is that, this year, because the crops at many farms were left unpicked and the fruit and vegetables left to die in the ground last year, a unique plan to have all the harvesting done by State prisoners has been set in motion. Escorted, these prisoners, many of whom might be the same illegal aliens who have been arrested for working illegally in the first place, will be taken out in prison trucks watched by armed guards, and ordered to do their jobs on farms that contract for the service. They will pick watermelons, onions, pumpkins and all sorts of other things this fall.

I am not making this up.

About a thousand of the state's 20,000 prison inmates will be selected to join in this program. They will earn 60 cents a day and will be eligible for small bonuses for especially fast work. They will be allowed to volunteer, but conscripted if there aren't enough volunteers. About 200 farms have already signed up for this program.

Joe Pisciotta, who owns a 700-acre farm in Avondale, had this to say to a reporter from the Los Angeles Times. "This prison labor is not a cure for the immigration problem, it's just a Band-Aid." But then, in answer to a question about how he felt doing this, he said, "I've got young kids. It's something I've got to think about."

Pisciotta also spoke about some of his former south-of-the-border farmhands, who he knew had papers, but had left him high and dry last fall anyway to flee the state. "Some of them said 'yes we think our paperwork is in order, but how about if it's not and we get caught on a glitch?'" he said gloomily.

Ricardo Martinez, who is a member of the Denver Immigrants' Rights Group, thinks that this new program is horrendous.

"Are we going to pull in inmates to work in the service industry, too? You won't have enough inmates, unless you start importing them from Texas."

Here on the East End, as you probably know, the Immigration Service, as part of the national crackdown on the idea of employing illegal immigrants, has been denying work permits to people from foreign countries who, up until now, have been able to obtain them. Many of these workers have come here legally for ten years or more. Their work permits were for six to ten-month periods at a time and had to be renewed annually. They would be back in their home countries during the interval.

The denial of the permit has been often based on the flimsiest excuse. A question on a form has been answered and they can't read the handwriting. Or in another case where, when asked in one place on the form what time period they intended to work, they wrote May to September and on another part of the form they wrote Memorial Day to Labor Day. About three quarters of these workers will not be here this summer. And since a reapplication process takes five months, it's just too late.

As we approach the summer season here on the East End, the labor problems have already begun. In Water Mill, Warren's Nursery has been unable to fill all its orders. The New York Times published a picture this last weekend of an entire field of evergreen hedgerows at Warren's that got pulled from the ground and bundled up, ready to be sent out, but then the workers were done. The result is that the hedgerow plants just lay there and died.

In Montauk, Paul Monte of Gurney's Inn, who employs a hundred or more short-term work card employees every year has turned to the Czech Republic. There is apparently a loophole in the Immigration Law for that country, which allows college kids and other Czech citizens to apply for work permits and get them on short notice. So that is what Gurney's Inn has done. They have more than fifty here for the summer season. And they intend to get through the summer.

The denial of work permits by the Immigration Department this year seems quite deliberate on the East End this summer. But it does not seem malevolent.

"It takes more paperwork and time to deny a permit than to approve one," one pencil-pushing bureaucrat said.

The implication is they are just doing their job and this year, the higher-ups have said the new policy is to deny permits if even the slightest thing is out of order, a "t" that is not crossed, an "i" that is not dotted. It makes more work for them.

As this is written, Washington is considering a new bill that would make it possible for an illegal immigrant in this country to obtain citizenship by following a path that might take them seven or eight years. The key to it is their work and education record. The immigration department is looking for people with excellent character and intelligence who are well educated and have never been in trouble. So even, smart as they are, if they came here by crossing the Rio Grande in the back of a truck in 1999, they will find a way. But will they clean toilets?

On the other hand, the path across the Rio Grande is being tightened up and if this bill is passed into law, there will be a lot more raids on homes where the Immigration Authority believes undesirable illegal aliens live.

How many Sagaponack billionaires does it take to screw in a lightbulb? We may find out in the upcoming weeks.