Agricultural Guestworker Act - Letters of Support
The Agricultural Guestworker Act, or the AG Act, replaces the outdated and broken H-2A guestworker program with a reliable, efficient, and fair program. The H-2A program is widely known to be expensive, time-consuming, and flawed. Each year, employers using the H-2A program have to comply with a lengthy labor certification process that is slow and plagued with red tape. As a result of complying with H-2A regulations, employers using the program almost always find themselves at a competitive disadvantage in the marketplace.
To provide American farmers with access to a legal, stable supply of workers, the AG Act creates a new H-2C guestworker program designed to meet the needs of the diverse agriculture industry. Under the bill, the guestworker program is administered by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and covers year-round employers, like dairies, aquaculture operations, food processors, and others. Further, the AG Act allows experienced unauthorized agricultural workers to continue working in agriculture and provides more flexibility to American farmers with respect to housing, transportation, and touchback periods.
Below is a list of support letters from the agriculture community for the Agricultural Guestworker Act:
American Farm Bureau Federation
American Sheep Industry Association and Mountain Plains Agriculture Service
California Strawberry Commission
Dairy Business Milk Marketing Cooperative
Georgia Farm Bureau Federation
National Cattlemen's Beef Association
National Milk Producers Federation
National Pork Producers Council
National Turkey Federation, National Chicken Council, and North American Meat Institute