Long Island Farm Bureau Focuses on Immigration

John Mitty Friday, March 15, 2013

This week, Long Island Farm Bureau member Joe Gergela discussed the importance of immigrant workers in the Long Island economy in detail.  Gergela, along with other leaders in the Long Island business community, are calling for immigration reform, namely improvements to the system overall, its approach to documentation, and the ease of coming and going from the country. 

Gergela states that the agricultural workforce on Long Island probably employs 7,000 to 8,000 immigrant workers.  Naturally the huge gap in the estimate points toward the lack of documentation.  Gergela doesn’t want those people to be shipped off however; instead he wants the immigration process to be facilitated so that they can achieve legal citizenship or legal alien status.  “We depend upon a foreign workforce, but we want a good legal system.  People should be able to go to and from our country,” Gergela explained. 

Gergela believes that up to 60% of the agricultural workforce includes undocumented foreign workers whose immigration status is uncertain at the present time.  Streamlining the system would potentially make it easier for those immigrants to establish themselves as legal workers in the US, and make it easier for the agricultural businesses on Long Island to maintain a consistent base of employees. 

jmitty@longislandyellowpages.com

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