Illegal Immigrants - AP- Grower's Dilemma in Hiring

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Published in Newsday/AP, Tuesday, July 4, 2006, 7:20PM

Hiring Only Legal Workers Grower's Dilemma

By ELLIOT SPAGAT
Associated Press Writer

July 4, 2006, 7:20 PM EDT

OCEANSIDE, Calif. -- Mexican ranchero music drifts across Michael Mellano's flower fields as his employees load eucalyptus branches onto trucks.

Mellano knows some of his men are illegal immigrants -- he estimates 60 percent of all workers on U.S. farms are illegal and figures the same percentage applies to his 250 employees.

"How can you hide it?" he asks. "Who are you trying to kid?"

Without them, Mellano's cut-flower business, founded by 80 years ago by his immigrant father, probably wouldn't survive.

It's already part of a vanishing breed in the United States. Foreign competition, spurred by relaxed trade barriers and improved shipping methods, has driven many U.S. flower growers out of business.

But the latest threat is coming from Mellano's own country. Congress is considering the most sweeping overhaul to immigration laws in decades. A public hearing by the U.S. House International Relations Committee is scheduled for Wednesday in San Diego, about 60 miles south of his fields.

Mellano knows anything that makes it harder for him to find or keep workers could shut him down for good.

"If all of a sudden we didn't have 60 percent of our guys, we couldn't operate," he said.

Mellano, an affable man who moves easily between English and Spanish, follows the law: He requires job applicants show proof they are allowed to work in the United States and says he rejects obvious forgeries. But a 1986 law doesn't require that he verify the authenticity of work documents.

"I'm assuming that a good number of our people are lying," said Mellano, 67, who grows lilies, irises and sunflowers on 375 acres of rolling hills. "We are required by law to hire people that have documents, which is what we do, but we know a significant number are forgeries. Everyone knows that."

Agriculture is one of the top employers of illegal immigrants, and Mellano, like the vast majority of his colleagues in the business, has declined to participate in a voluntary program to verify employees' Social Security numbers and check them against other federal databases. Bills passed by the House and Senate would require it.

The federal government is under pressure to step up enforcement in the workplace. Only 46 people were convicted in 2004 for hiring illegal immigrants, a number that has changed little over the last decade.

Lauren Mack, a spokeswoman for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, which enforces immigration laws at workplaces, said a new strategy involves prosecuting employers for other violations that may be easier to prove, such as tax evasion or money laundering.

The immigration debate comes at a time of swift change in the flower business, a $9 billion-a-year industry in the United States.

The number of U.S. cut flower growers was 498 last year, down from 829 in 1997, according to the Department of Agriculture. Imports accounted for 65.6 percent of cut flowers sold in the U.S. last year, up from 42.7 percent in 1990.

With its ideal growing climate, Colombia emerged as a flower power in the 1970s and flourished as the U.S. government encouraged farmers there to wean themselves from cocoa plants, which are used to make cocaine.

The competitive disadvantage Mellano faces is evident from the wage scale: His workers start at $6.75 an hour, or roughly $1,100 per month. A worker in Colombia makes $150 to $200 a month.

John Keeley, spokesman for the Center for Immigration Studies in Washington, D.C., has no sympathy for Mellano's plight. Illegal immigrants have been an "unending labor subsidy" for farmers, stifling innovation and mechanization, he said. If Mellano can't attract enough legal workers, then he should close his business, Keeley said.

"If Colombia gets a bigger piece of the pie, all the power to them," said Keeley, whose organization advocates tighter immigration controls. "We're not turning our backs on globalization."

A visit to the Mellano farm illustrates the extent to which flower growers depend on manual labor.

One crew swats eucalyptus branches and loads them onto trucks, while others pick bulbs and pull weeds.

A loading dock houses a crude machine for chopping off iris stems, one of the few machines on the farm, which is sandwiched between homes and a golf course on one end and hills of avocado and macadamia trees on the other.

Mellano also grows unusual flowers like Asiatic lilies, reflecting a trend among domestic growers to ward off foreign competition. But he began importing his carnations from Colombia about 15 years ago -- it's rare to find a U.S. grower now who harvests roses, carnations or chrysanthemums.

Migrant advocacy groups, accustomed to hearing about employers refusing to pay workers, say Mellano & Co. doesn't generate complaints.

His employees earn vacation time after six months, and the company charges workers only $130 a month to live in a 50-person dorm that has a big television and a large kitchen.

Mellano has some understanding of the lives they are living. His Italian mother was an illegal immigrant when she cleaned homes in France before moving to the United States in the 1930s. The family bought land in Orange County, south of Los Angeles, and moved to the San Diego area in the 1960s.

As Congress discusses immigration overhaul, Mellano has watched with a mix of hope and dismay. A self-proclaimed conservative Republican, he said the GOP risks alienating Hispanic voters with its hard stance against illegal immigration.

He doesn't offer answers himself, though he speaks fondly of the temporary farmworker program between the United States and Mexico that lasted from 1942 to 1964. He is emphatic on one point: The status quo doesn't work.

"For an ethical person, it's a real dilemma because the system is crazy," he said. "I want to be above board."


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