Almost a million workers, over five percent of California's workers, were employed for wages in agriculture in 2016, a sector that accounted for less than two percent of the state's GDP. Despite fears of labor shortages, the number of hired farm workers has been rising, not falling.
Continue reading "California Farm Workers: FTE and Average Earnings in 2016"...
President Trump took office January 20, 2017 and issued three executive orders during his first week: to step up border and interior enforcement of immigration laws and to bar the entry of persons from particular countries and reduce refugee admissions. The border and interior enforcement orders are being implemented, the number of refugees has been reduced below 50,000 a year, and the US Supreme Court in June 2018 upheld the President's authority to bar citizens of particular countries who may pose security risks.
The EU 28 member states granted asylum to 538,000 foreigners in 2017. Two thirds were Syrians, Afghans and Iraqis, and 60 percent of those recognized as refugees were in Germany.
Mexicans went to the polls July 1, 2018, selecting candidates for 3,400 federal, state, and local offices, from President to mayor. Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador or AMLO and his Movement for National Regeneration or Morena won 53 percent of the vote for president with a vow to reduce corruption and help Mexico's poor.
Rep Bob Goodlatte's Agricultural Guestworker Act (HR 4092), approved by the House Judiciary Committee in October 2017, aims to give farmers easier access to guest workers. Goodlatte revised HR 4092 in 2018, and won the endorsement of the American Farm Bureau Federation. Goodlatte, who was an immigration lawyer in Roanoke, Virginia before being elected to Congress in 1992, is retiring in 2018.
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