The labor needs of many American industries, including agriculture, are simply not going to be met without an infusion of outside labor. Given the huge economic and wage disparities, the movement of workers north from our southern borders is not going to be stopped by traditional law enforcement and security measures.

I suggest it would be possible only at enormous direct and indirect costs, the consequences of which would not be acceptable to our treasury or economy. Regularity for entering and leaving under a proper system will move people through the gates rather than around them.

The Arizona Farm Bureau wants this needed labor to be legal. Our system of law and national security demands no less. We have been consistent in pressing for immigration reform and border security that do not thwart the rule of law. We need comprehensive federal reform because it is the right thing to do, and we advocate it with the knowledge that proper reform will fuel our labor costs.

A viable temporary worker program, having integrity in the identification process for entry and a worthy system of checks and balances to insure timely exit will assist us with our economic needs and have the added benefit of appropriate identification. There is ample evidence the intention of many is to be temporary, and the system must provide sufficient disincentive to enter illegally and discourage human smuggling.

Enforcement without a viable temporary worker program will choke legitimate labor needs, having economic consequences, and drive illegal labor further underground, off the books and off the radar screen of national security. A proper temporary program will also free law enforcement efforts for those who continue to enter illegally and for illegitimate purposes.

Reform must also wrestle with the issue of those here illegally because of inertia and the failings of our system and inappropriate tools of enforcement for over a decade. I point no fingers but it is what it is, with the vision of hindsight. Amnesty in 1986 had time limitations, it was not surrounded by appropriate systems, and quite frankly, policy makers did not anticipate the unprecedented wave of immigration to follow, to include the illegal.

I wish to be very clear: Farm Bureau opposes amnesty, but we do support a pathway which will encourage, perhaps 10 million to 14 million people, to emerge from the shadows, allow for identification and to provide for mechanisms for proper temporary status, which could lead to other legal status. These mechanisms should not suggest reward, but if too punitive, it will drive people further underground. There are those who suggest wholesale deportation, but neither the sensibilities of our citizenry, the attendant costs, nor our frank economic realities will tolerate such public policy.

This leads us to the other question of enforcement: what increased employer sanctions and employer driven responsibilities steps will be acceptable? They cannot be more stringent for one employer over another. Increased employer responsibility is not possible without government capacity to provide the information requested and in a timely fashion. There must be safe harbors for good faith efforts. Particular groups of employers cannot be targeted in the audit phase. Any system cannot contain the seeds of discrimination, which targets a class of employers or employees.

Increased employer sanctions and more responsibilities for employers will work only if the process is timely and the results not cumbersome. We support this, but it will work only within the framework of a temporary worker system. We do not believe immigration reform and border security will be successful if law enforcement, at both the border, in the interior, and within the workplace is unhinged from a viable temporary worker program.

We pledge to work in good faith towards these ends. Concurrently, policy makers and those industries that understand these issues must pledge themselves to explaining the process and the rationale to the public. Inaction begets frustration and unfortunate rhetoric, which leads to a spiral of clamor for pure enforcement solutions. —

Kevin Rogers is president of the Arizona Farm Bureau.