SEC. 2.
The Legislature finds and declares the following:(a) The California economy relies upon the agricultural and service industries.
(b) Since 2007, California’s farms and ranches continue to experience the highest agricultural output in the nation. In 2015, they generated an estimated $47 billion, which was 17 percent lower than in 2014, when they generated $54 billion. In 2013, they generated $51.3 billion. This is a substantial increase from the $36.3 billion in 2007 and $37.5 billion in 2010. Despite severe droughts and labor shortages, California continues to lead the nation in cash farm
receipts. On a global scale, California ranks between 5th and 9th in the world, ahead of such countries as Canada, Mexico, Germany, and Spain. According to a study by the University of California, Davis, every dollar of value added (labor and property income and indirect business taxes) in farming and agricultural related farming- and agriculture-related industries generates an additional $1.27 in the state economy. For every 100 jobs in agriculture, there are 94 additional jobs created throughout the state.
(c) In the past decade, farming costs have increased an estimated 88 percent, due in part to new and expanding state and federal laws and regulations. Meanwhile,
foreign-produced food is being imported at an accelerated pace, and at far lower costs. In today’s global market, California farmers cannot simply pass their costs onto consumers. The high costs of doing business in the state have resulted in consolidation of land and a reduction in total farmed acreage, which is detrimental to the state’s economy.
(d) California’s agricultural industry is dependent on immigrant labor, as evidenced by the most recent National Agricultural Workers Survey, which found that most of the state’s agricultural workers were born in Mexico and that 60 percent of crop workers have been unauthorized for the last 10 years.
(e) A previous study of the status of 2,300 farmworkers in California in 13 counties suggested that 95 percent of California agricultural
workers were born outside the United States and 91 percent in Mexico. On average, they have been in the United States 11.1 years. Twenty-two percent have been in the United States two years or less, 10 percent are United States citizens, 33 percent have a Green Card, officially known as a Permanent Resident Card, and 57 percent are unauthorized. Of the newcomers who have been here less than two years, 99 percent are unauthorized.
(f) The federal employment-based immigration programs for admitting foreign workers for temporary and permanent jobs are rigid, cumbersome, inefficient, do not respond very well to employers’ needs, and give almost no attention to adapting the number and characteristics of foreign workers to domestic labor shortages.
(g) Nevertheless, the United
States Congress has repeatedly failed to pass comprehensive immigration reform, instead choosing to annually introduce primarily interior and border enforcement-only legislation and temporary worker proposals that ignore the socioeconomic profile of this essential workforce and do not account for the unique workforce needs of California’s diverse agricultural industry.
(h) Congress has also had strong advocacy for having the E-Verify program become mandatory for all employers in conjunction with the new guest worker program. The agricultural employer community throughout the United States believes the E-Verify program requirement, without a guest worker program, would eliminate a significant portion of the existing agricultural workforce with no certainty that these vacancies will be filled by United States citizens and legal
residents.
(i) Due to the unworkable framework of the federal H-2A guest worker program, the absence of a suitable alternative program, and the potential for Congress to pass stand-alone E-verify legislation, agricultural interests in Oklahoma and Utah have introduced legislation creating state guest worker programs, while several other states are considering the introduction of similar state initiatives.
(j) Among California’s key economic industry sectors, the hospitality and tourism sector plays a central role in stimulating California’s sluggish economy. In 2011, the leisure and hospitality industry accounted for over $100 billion in travel-related spending. According to state records, more than two million employees, or 14 percent of all employees in California, work in
leisure, hospitality, and other services. These workers serve as a foundational workforce for the state’s $1.8 trillion economy.
(k) Despite well-documented labor shortages, especially in agriculture where hourly wages have increased significantly and housing and health care services are being offered, United States-born citizens continue to avoid employment in agriculture.
(l) Recognizing the significant contributions that unauthorized workers make to California’s economy and the need to bring these workers out of the shadows in order to improve worker conditions and at the same time provide a legal workforce for the agricultural and service industries, it is imperative that a program be created for current unauthorized workers in these industries.
(m) It is the intent of the Legislature that the executive and legislative branches of the federal government give the highest priority to enacting legislation to create a guest worker program that would confer legal status to reside in the United States to persons who would participate in the program described in this act.
(n) It is the intent of the Legislature that the costs of the working group established pursuant to this act be covered by nonstate funding sources.