Arizona, Colorado pursue state guest worker plans

The Associated Press

Published: 03.14.2008

PHOENIX — As a labor contractor in the nation's winter lettuce capital, Francisco Chavez struggles to hire enough workers to pick and package the produce.

Last year, ripe romaine sometimes went bad in the fields around Yuma, Ariz., because Chavez didn't have enough people to harvest the crop, which must be picked by hand. "That's my challenge — to get the crews," he said.

Such complaints are becoming so common that lawmakers in Arizona and Colorado are considering creating their own guest-worker programs to attract more immigrant laborers. It's unclear whether states have the authority to adopt such measures, but legislators are tired of waiting for Congress to overhaul the immigration system — and they are taking matters into their own hands.

State Sen. Abel Tapia, the Democratic co-author of the Colorado proposal, lashed out at Washington: "You had your chance to do a comprehensive immigration package a year ago, and you didn't do it, and I can't imagine that you will have anything by 2010, so what are we to do in the meantime?"

The federal government has run guest-worker programs for more than a century, but congressional efforts to overhaul the system stalled in 2006 and 2007.