This week, the House Judiciary Committee (Committee) advanced the Agricultural Guestworker Act, a bill that reforms the agricultural guestworker program, known as the H-2A visa. H-2A is a temporary work visa for foreign agriculture workers for seasonal work in the United States. Democrats, and some Republicans, were harshly critical of the overhaul proposed by House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Virginia), but the Committee narrowly passed the bill by a 17-16 vote.
Throughout the markup, Democrats argued the plan would undercut U.S. wages in the agricultural sector by importing low-cost labor. However, agriculture businesses have suffered in recent years from a labor shortage, and this proposal was praised by industry leaders for expanding their access to new workforces. Representative Goodlatte’s bill would replace the H-2A program with an H-2C system which would allow foreign nationals to work year-round under the new system, issue 500,000 visas, and establish $8.34/hour as the minimum wage allowed for the visa holder. California is the fourth most popular site for H-2A visa holders, but guest-workers occupy a relatively small portion of the labor force under the current program. Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California), the Ranking Member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has supported H-2A visa replacement programs in the past but has shown no interest in moving such a bill through the Senate.