US Farmers, Guest Workers Pay a Price to Stay Legal Alana Semuels - The Los Angeles Times
go to original April 12, 2013

A worker shows the documents that have made it legal for him to work seasonally in North Carolina under the H-2A guest worker program. He gets a new visa each year if he and his employer meet the requirements. (Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)

There are millions of undocumented workers in America, and thousands of employers who illegally hire them. But Rodolfo Benito Coy Garcia and Rusty Barr play by the rules.

Barr is an employer and Garcia his employee, one who travels from Mexico to spend 10 months of the year planting, fertilizing and harvesting Christmas trees in this tiny mountain town near the Tennessee state line.
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For both, following the law has disadvantages. Barr must go through a lengthy, complicated and expensive process to hire Garcia, spending more than his competitors, who he says employ undocumented migrants. Garcia must leave behind his family for most of the year to work a job that pays little by American standards, with no chance of becoming a citizen in the country where he has spent much of his adult life.

"I miss my family, yes," said Garcia, whose wife and two daughters live in Tamaulipas, a Mexican state that borders Texas. "But we come here to support our families and provide our kids with a better education."

Read the rest at The Los Angeles Times

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