California farm leader to Congress: Give undocumented farmworkers permanent legal status

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File: Mexican migrant workers load boxes of organic cilantro during the fall harvest at Grant Family Farms on October 11, 2011 in Wellington, Colorado.

In an election year, Congress has shied away from any immigration legislation. But this morning, a House committee examined several bills that address one immigration issue: the need for farm labor. Political realities help explain the debate.

Republican Congressman Dan Lungren of Folsom is pushing his guest worker bill, which would grant 10-month visas to foreign farm laborers.

Paul Wenger, head of California’s Farm Bureau Federation, told the House Judiciary Committee that farms today employ about a million skilled undocumented workers.

"Any solution must deal in a practical and humane way with current workers," Wenger said. Those experienced farm workers need a more permanent legal status, Wenger added.

After the hearing, Wenger admitted none of the bills likely to pass the GOP-led House would grant permanent residency. But there are two bodies of Congress.

"Should something get out of the House, you know, there could be some other things in the Senate," Wenger said. He's talking to Democratic U.S. Senator Dianne Feinstein, Wenger said, about a guest worker program that would address the needs of undocumented farm workers already in this country.