Posted on Sat, May. 17, 2008

WASHINGTON -- Sen. Dianne Feinstein has changed her tune about using Iraq war spending bills to provide temporary legal status for illegal farmworkers.

She used to think it was a bad idea. Not anymore.

Next week, the full Senate is expected to consider an emergency spending bill that includes Feinstein's agricultural guest worker plan. If it survives, the guest worker package would offer temporary legal status to 1.35 million illegal immigrant farmworkers.

"This is an emergency situation," Feinstein, D-Calif., told Senate Appropriations Committee colleagues Thursday, adding that "agriculture needs a consistent work force. Without it, they can't plant, they can't prune, they can't pick and they can't pack."

Feinstein's plan modifies a more ambitious package called AgJOBS. The original AgJOBS proposal would grant legal status to 1.5 million illegal immigrant farmworkers. It also would put them on a path to receiving a green card and, in time, U.S. citizenship.

The revised plan grants legal status to fewer farmworkers, and it would not put them on an automatic path toward a green card or U.S. citizenship. After five years, the farmworkers would revert to illegal status if they still were in the United States.

"This to me is a fair compromise, just to get something in place," said Manuel Cunha, president of the Fresno-based Nisei Farmers League. Cunha stressed that the proposal is a pilot program and temporary.

Feinstein said she considered it appropriate to include the controversial guest worker plan as an amendment to a $193 billion emergency spending bill, the primary purpose of which is to fund the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Other lawmakers disagree.

The chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee, Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., is among those opposed to Feinstein's proposal.

Byrd warned Thursday that controversial Iraq war bill amendments probably would require at least 60 votes on the Senate floor, a high hurdle.

"No matter how one characterizes this enormous amendment, it still amounts to amnesty," Byrd said.

The Appropriations Committee approved the revised guest worker amendment by a 17-12 vote.

If the agricultural guest worker amendment fails this year, lawmakers still could try using it to build tactical momentum; for instance, by securing promises of action next year.

Sometimes, this is why lawmakers introduce bills they know will lose in the short run.

Some lawmakers are leery about adding extraneous provisions to war funding bills, particularly on divisive immigration policies. In 2005, for instance, agricultural guest worker supporters fell seven votes short in efforts to include AgJOBS on Iraq war spending legislation.

"This is not the place for this bill," one unhappy senator said during the April 18, 2005, debate. "I believe it is a mistake to pass this bill on an emer- gency supplemental that is designed to provide help for our military, fighting in extraordinary circumstances."

That senator was Feinstein.

At the time, Feinstein voiced doubts about the wisdom of legalizing so many illegal immigrants. She since has become the Senate's biggest supporter of AgJOBS.

Feinstein's press secretary, Scott Gerber, said Friday that "times have changed" and that "the agriculture crisis has deepened."

As evidence, Feinstein's office circulated a photograph of a Sacramento Valley farmer lamenting the necessity of destroying her pear crop because of a farmworker shortage. The Western Growers Association said Arizona and California farmers often need to hire more workers than they are able to find.

"This was the only opportunity, at a time when very few bills are moving," Gerber said.

Other lawmakers, too, are hopping on the Iraq war spending bill. The Senate version, for instance, includes additional funding for low-income housing energy assistance, rural schools and firefighting, among other domestic programs.