must obtain a tamper-proof social security card from the prospective employee or a tamper-proof INS card. He must then report to the nearest social security office or INS office the name and number on that card. If he does that, he meets his requirement under the law and would not be subject to criminal penalties. Senator SCOTT. Would you distinguish between an employer and a procurer, someone who goes out and brings in a group of illegal aliens for employment?

Mr. SMITH. By all means, the penalties ought to be very much more severe on the procurer.

Senator SCOTT. But still you would have a criminal penalty on the employer?

Mr. SMITH. Yes, sir.

Senator SCOTT. Thank you.

Mr. SMITH. The employer should also be required to report the examination of the social security or INS cards to the nearest social security or INS office and the agency should be required to verify the authenticity of the proof.

This does not by any stretch of the imagination result in a requirement of personal identification other than for a showing of legal residence for employment purposes; nor does it set up any general surveillance system at home or abroad.

Section 4, providing for 5-year temporary residential permits, should be striken. Compassion must be shown in these matters, but to permit persons who have entered illegally between January 1, 1970 and January 1, 1977, to remain as temporary legal residents for another 5 years cannot be justified.

Under present law such illegal alines are subject to deportation. I would suppose that few would recommend or approve of the rapid mass expulsion of these persons, who may number between five and ten million people. Such action would offend our sense of humanity; as an administrative matter it would be unworkable.

But if the opportunity for employment in competition with American workers is denied the illegal immigrant, he will soon make his own way back home. Economic processes can be allowed to take their course. If we provide for a 5-year work and residential permit, this economic motivation is removed.

If the purpose of section 4 was to identify illegal residents, it is unnecessary and the price would be too high. If the purpose was to facilitate repatriation, the result will be the opposite. If the purpose was to provide time for adjustment of status, section 2 accomplishes that purpose in a simple way to a large extent. The adjustment of status for persons entering between January 1, 1970 and January 1, 1977, would result in effect in the enlargement of legal immigration quotas; we doubt Congress would be willing to move very far in that direction. Unbroken residence since January 1, 1970, demonstrates attachment to the community.

In respect to section 5(3), we question pre-emption by the Federal Government. States and localities should be allowed to enact controls more stringent than the Federal law. There may often be local situations and local sentiment calling for stronger controls. Perhaps some guidelines are needed.

It must never be overlooked that we are dealing in these matters with violations of the laws of our country. To permit the wide

spread and continuing violation of our laws encourages the flouting of law everywhere. It is no small thing to say that a person has violated the laws of the United States in effecting illegal entrance across our borders.

We tend to overlook such considerations in these permissive times, but the just and effective enforcement of laws is a precondition of democracy. People commit a misdemanor when they enter this country illegally. They continue to violate our laws by remaining after illegal entry. Persons who harbor them in this country, although not persons who employ them under present law, are guilty of a criminal offense.

The illegal alien does not, and should not, acquire the rights of a legal resident, nor certainly those of a citizen, by remaining in this country. He is entitled, like all other persons, to the protection of the Bill of Rights, including freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. But he is, nonetheless, a law-breaker.

The administration overstepped propriety, in my judgment, and perhaps legality, in receiving representatives of illegal immigrant organizations recently at the White House.

To lend the implied approval of the Government to illegality in this manner encourages law-breaking of all kinds.

I appreciate the invitation to testify before this committee. Thank you, Senator.

Senator SCOTT. Mr. Smith, we are glad to have your testimony. Thank you for being with us.

Our next witness is Mr. Thomas Jones, who is here on behalf of the National Association of Farmworker Organizations.

Mr. Jones, the committee is glad to have you here with us. I would ask you to be as concise as you can. We are a little behind schedule. We will be glad to insert your entire statement in the record, if you wish.

STATEMENT OF THOMAS JONES, NATIONAL REPRESENTATIVE, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FARMWORKER ORGANIZATIONS, ACCOMPANIED BY ELOISE ROSAS, LEGISLATIVE SPECIALIST ON THE IMMIGRATION ISSUE, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF FARMWORKER ORGANIZATIONS

Mr. JONES. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to introduce Eloise Rosas, who is the legislative specialist on the immigration issue for our national association. With your permission, due to the very short notice that we had on coming to speak, I would like to submit a supplement to our presentation today for the record.

Senator SCOTT. We would be delighted to have you do that. Mr. JONES. Thank you very much.

Mr. Chairman, I am representing the National Association of Farmworker Organizations. My name is Tom Jones. I am the national representative.

We appreciate the opportunity to testify today on the impact of the administration's immigration proposals and its relationship to migrant and seasonal farmworkers in this Nation.

The major provision of the administration's immigration proposal, Mr. Chairman, is centered around the imposition of penalties on employers who hire undocumented workers.

The support for employer sanctions comes at a time when the administration is also searching for solutions to a chronic unemployment problem in this country. A major reason cited for supporting employer sanctions is the belief that undocumented workers take jobs from U.S. workers and that the undocumented worker's fear of deportation makes him or her vulnerable to exploitation which in turn depresses wages and working conditions for U.S. workers.

Without better data, it is impossible for anyone to know the economic impact of undocumented workers on the U.S. labor force as a whole. But it is indisputable that U.S. farmworkers who do not receive basic Federal labor protection, such as the right to unionize, to an adequate minimum wage, and to health and safety protection, are particularly vulnerable to competition from the easily exploited undocumented labor force.

The Employment Service of the U.S. Department of Labor, which is supposed to function as the major interstate job referral system for migrant farm workers, has been rendered almost totally ineffective in many parts of this Nation, primarily because growers, preferring to hire readily available undocumented workers, do not place job orders any longer with the U.S. Employment Service. United States farm workers, having learned that they cannot rely on the Service, also have no faith in the Service when they are attempting to look for work in others States.

For years, many different types of farm worker unions and other unions have been frustrated in their attempts to organize farm workers because undocumented workers are outside the union structure basically. Many undocumented workers are also discouraged from joining the union because their employers will have them deported if they attempt to organize. Undeniably growers prefer to hire cheap and easily exploited labor, and often that means the undocumented worker from Mexico and the Caribbean. Thus, if any worker can speak to the disruption within this country caused by the employment of undocumented labor, it is the U.S. agricultural farm laborer.

But having acknowleged that undocumented workers make it more difficult to improve the poor working conditions of farm workers, we must also say that we are nevertheless completely opposed to the imposition of employer sanctions at this point. Many farm workers are Mexican-American and logically would be the first victims of any discrimination that would inevitably result from employer sanctions. Although the statute applies to everyone in this country, it is clear that persons of Mexican appearance on the west coast and in many parts of the country-and in some cases, Mr. Chairman, black farm workers on the eastern seaboard-would be singled out for special scrutiny by employers, where held responsible for looking at documents of their agricultural employees.

Further, it would be more difficult for the average farm worker to obtain documents showing citizenship than it would be for other persons, primarily because farm workers are already so far removed from the document-producing mainstream of this country. Many farm workers do not speak English. The average head of a household for a farm worker family in this country has an average

third grade education. Farmworkers who are eligible for muchneeded social services when they cannot find work, such as medical care, food stamps, and welfare, often only find their way into the agencies that provide these services as a last resort. Often the whole family has to work in the fields, but only the head of the household, if anyone, possess a social security card.

It is completely unrealistic to expect that these people who are already so geographically and sociologically isolated that they do not participate in basic Federal programs today would be able to meet the requirements of this proposal presented in this bill. A great many of them would become unemployable because of their inability to produce the required documents.

Mr. Chairman, I have heard in testimony this morning from both the agricultural industry and from the other interest groups represented at the table that there is an inability to find domestic farm laborers in this country. Mr. Chairman, I would contend that there are hundreds of thousands of skilled migrant and seasonal farm workers within the territory of the United States who are willing and able to find work.

The problem which has resulted in this country in terms of locating those agricultural workers to do that work is that we have depended upon a system which has become outdated and outmoded—that is, the U.S. employment system, which neither serves the employer any longer nor very well serves to protect the employee, the agricultural farm laborer.

There are many growers who would welcome an excuse not to hire U.S. farmworkers. Under the H-2 provisions of the present Immigration and Nationality Act, an employer who can use any means to show a shortage of domestic labor, can import temporary workers under this program to pick his or her crops. There is already strong pressure from growers to increase the use of foreign labor in agriculture through an expansion of the H-2 program, which has already been presented in testimony this morning.

Although the Department of Labor presently places the unemployment rate among farm workers at an average of 11.7 percent or 125,000 farmworkers, it continues to authorize the importation of over 10,000 workers a year to do farm work within the country. Last year in Presidio, Tex., over 800 foreign workers were imported to pick onions while domestic workers in McAllen, Tex. had been recruited and given contracts and then subsequently refused the right to work in those jobs in Presidio, Tex.

In New York State the unemployment rate in March 1976 was 10.9 percent. Among the rural poor, who are potential sources of agricultural labor, the unemployment rate was even higher. Yet, in the fall of 1976, the last season for which data is available, the Hudson Valley apple growers imported as many as 3,607 alien workers during the peak period to supplement the 2,690 domestic workers employed during the same period in the apple harvest.

Even without the excuse that employer sanctions would provide, growers avoid recruiting U.S. workers in order to qualify for foreign workers under the H-2 program.

The motivations are self-explanatory. There has been testimony presented throughout the Congress that under the H-2 program growers need not pay for social security or unemployment compen

sation. Often because the employer has a docile labor force which can be removed from this country upon any discontent, the grower has a locked-in labor force.

These provisions alone provide millions of dollars each year in incentives for growers to continue to use undocumented and foreign labor rather than, domestic agricultural labor.

Last year when growers in 13 States filed suit against the Department of Labor because they could not find workers to pick apples along the eastern seaboard, the Texas Employment Commission in south Texas, when asked about these jobs, informed farmworker advocates that they had job orders from only three of those 13 States.

These temporary foreign workers are paid at a rate set by the Department of Labor, called the adverse wage rate. Although the rate is supposed to be a minimum rate of pay, set at a level which will not depress the earnings of American workers in that locale, it actually operates as a maximum. Any worker who wants more is considered unavailable by the Department of Labor, and the employer can certify a labor shortage and hire H-2 workers.

In a deposition taken by attorneys in an action supporting farm workers last year the person responsible at the Department of Labor for authorization of the H-2 program was asked if the farm worker along the eastern seaboard asked for one penny more than the adverse wage rate what would be the Department's determination. The answer was that that farm worker would be determined unavailable for work.

Any worker who wants more is considered unavailable by the Department of Labor, and the employer can certify a labor shortage and the Department can authorize the hiring of H-2 workers. The result, Mr. Chairman, is on the eastern seaboard, because the Government actively is involved in regulating the wages of farm laborers, we have a great differential between the apple harvest rates on the eastern seaboard versus the apple harvest rates in Oregon where there is no Government program, where there is an open market and the market dictates labor price.

It is ironic that I speak to you today in support of an open market for hiring labor and for the employer paying the available wage and the agricultural industry is in favor of Federal support of a price ceiling on agricultural labor.

Besides keeping wages low, H-2 workers can be fired and deported by their employer for any reason. Thus, they offer the same advantage of being easily exploited as do undocumented workers, but they are hired with Federal approval.

We believe that the attempt to impose sanctions on those who employ undocumented workers will be ineffective. Growers have been virtually immune from the enforcement of those few labor protection sanctions that have been imposed in the past and would quickly learn that they had little to fear from these new sanctions, if they chose to continue hiring undocumented workers.

But they would also have the means to disqualify U.S. farm workers, many of whom would be unable to prove their citizenship and few of whom would be able to effectively pursue the available remedies. The result would be greatly expanded use of the H-2 program which legally depresses wages and eliminates job opportu