Facing Illegal Immigrant Crackdown, Farms Look to Inmate Labor

July 25, 2007— -- The ongoing debate over illegal immigration in the U.S. is having some strange and unintended consequences in the West, where farmers facing acres of unpicked crops are replacing immigrants with inmates.

In Colorado, which last year passed some of the strictest immigration laws in the country, a new program aims to stem a severe labor shortage by using prisoners to work fields once farmed by migrant workers. In Arizona and Idaho, farmers are begging for the expansion of existing prison labor programs as states begin to target employers who hire illegal immigrants.

But both farmers and activists say such programs provide only a temporary solution to a permanent labor problem that seems ever further from resolution.

Inmates from Colorado's La Vista Correctional Facility for Women headed out to the fields in May, after state representative Dorothy Butcher (D-Pueblo) worked with five family farmers to fill crop-picking jobs almost no one had applied for. Butcher said Colorado's tightened immigration laws, passed during a special session last summer, have chased huge numbers of migrant workers from the state and left farmers wondering "what the hell to do."

Butcher answered that desperate question in February, when she told farmers that inmates accustomed to working difficult prison jobs might do well in the fields.

"Those women do tough manual labor," Butcher said. "They do construction. I figured if they could do all that they could work on farm."

Massive Labor Shortages Expected

To qualify for the program, prisoners must be at a minimum security level and have exemplary behavior – and they must volunteer. So far, 20 women have joined the program, making up two crews. Colorado Department of Corrections spokesperson Katherine Sanguinetti said the program could expand to maximum of four crews this year, a number Butcher acknowledges will provide a temporary solution for this summer but will not solve the labor shortage in the long run.

With comprehensive immigration reform again stalled in Congress and states across the nation tightening immigration laws, agricultural labor shortages will become increasingly common, according to Austin Perez of the American Farm Bureau. The agricultural workforce has decreased by 10 % over the last 5 years, Perez said, even though pay has increased by 20%.