Farm Worker Shortage Forcing U.S. Companies to Relocate?
RICK SANCHEZ, CNN ANCHOR: New York's driver's license issue, this is a controversial plan. Well, Utah has an established plan. In Utah, you can get a driver's license, but it doesn't mean that you're legal. All it means is that you can drive. But here's the question. Does it work? It's actually one of two trends that we're going to be following tonight. Here's the other ones. It's a backlash against illegal immigrants. We have been taking you to all these places. In fact, let's go back here and we will talk about some of the areas where we have sent reporters or where I have gone myself, places like Hazleton, Pennsylvania, places like Prince William County, places like Tulsa, where they're saying if you give a ride to an illegal immigrant you could end up going to jail for a year, places like Irving, Texas, where they have been cracking down as well. Here's the other potential trend that's going on in our country when it comes to immigration. There is a possibility that there are employers or farmers who say, if they can't get the workers here, then they're willing to go south of the border and restart their operations. There's one farmer in particular who's done just that. He's gone down there, south of the border. And that's where we sent our correspondent Harris Whitbeck.</s>HARRIS WHITBECK, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): This is what can happen when not enough Mexicans or other migrants go to the United States. These Mexican farm workers are harvesting lettuce for a California vegetable producer. Every day, Valley Harvesting and Packing ships tons of lettuce to school lunchrooms and restaurants all across the United States. But the lettuce isn't grown in California. And these workers are not in the United States. They're in Mexico. Company owner Steve Scaroni moved his operation south of the border because he could not find enough workers back home.</s>STEVE SCARONI, OWNER, VALLEY HARVESTING AND PACKING: Every year, it just seems like we have less and less full crews every day. It seems like, for the last five years, in the United States, all or a majority of our crews are short every day.</s>WHITBECK: Immigration crackdowns and limits on the number of guest workers made labor scarce. Scaroni says he tried for years to get Congress to pass a bill that would allow for a bigger pool of legal guest farm workers. He even made six lobbying trips to Washington, six. But, he says, his pleas fell on deaf ears.</s>SCARONI: We have people who are making laws and running the United States who are very disconnected from reality. And that's a very frustrating thing. I spent two years and six trips to Washington trying to be a solution to the problem. I finally gave up.</s>WHITBECK: Scaroni now employs close to 500 workers on his lands and packing plant in central Mexico.</s>SCARONI: People aren't raising their kids to be farm workers.</s>WHITBECK: While he allows that labor in Mexico is cheaper than back in California, his costs now are actually higher. (on camera): Scaroni says he spends about $10 million a year to run this farm here in Mexico. That means $10 million a year are not being spent back in California. And that's not all. According to statistics, for every dollar spent on a farm, an additional $4 to $6 are spent in the general economy. (voice-over): That money gets multiplied when local businesses benefit from the farm spending. In other words, farm suppliers are losing money back home. This grandson of a Swiss-Italian immigrant has had to emigrate, in a sense, as well.</s>SCARONI: The sad thing is, I have to complete my American dream of building a company from nothing, I have to complete it in Mexico, because our government, our Congress, doesn't have the will or the fortitude to take a known problem, which is immigration, and take a dysfunctional problem and fix it.</s>WHITBECK: Harris Whitbeck, CNN, Celaya, Mexico.</s>SANCHEZ: We were so intrigued by this story that we wanted to talk to this farmer, Steve Scaroni. Hey, listen, I guess I'm going to tell you something now that's probably not going to even surprise you a little bit, but there was a farm bill that Congress looked at today. They're already running away from it. It doesn't look like they're going to even consider this thing. You wouldn't be surprised by that, now, would you? Oh, looks like we just lost him just as we were going ready to bring in him. We will probably be able to fix that. Let's do this, if we can. We have also got another guest that we were going to put up to challenge some of the assertions that were going to be made by Mr. Scaroni. So, let's bring him in now. Steve Camarota, he says there's no evidence of a farm worker shortage. He's also, by the way, the director of research Center of Immigration Studies. Now, you just, I heard -- I imagine you heard this story. Here's a farmer, $50 million farmer, and he says, you know what? I can't get enough workers in California. And he goes south of the border. This can't be good for us, right?</s>DR. STEVEN CAMAROTA, CENTER FOR IMMIGRATION STUDIES: Well, it depends on how you look at it. But when we look at the actual data the government collects on farm wages for farmers, in the last seven years, wages for farm workers are up just 3 percent. Now, if we really were just desperate for such workers, couldn't find any, wages should be rising very rapidly. The average farm worker in the United States still makes less than he did 20 years ago. That wage is nine bucks an hour.</s>SANCHEZ: So, what are you saying? First of all, is he lying when he says, I can't make it work in the United States, so I have to go south of the border?</s>CAMAROTA: Well, what a lot of farmers -- has happened is, they have just become accustomed to the idea of paying very low wages, having all the workers they want exactly when they want them, and transferring the costs of providing health care and education and social services to taxpayers. That's the status quo. And that's what they want to continue, instead of paying more, having a smaller work force, and mechanizing, which is what they need to do.</s>SANCHEZ: Well, he has 500 employees, by the way. I was checking that number a little while ago. Does it surprise you that he wouldn't be able to come up with 500 people in the state of California who could do that work?</s>CAMAROTA: Well, what's interesting is not only are wages nationally only up 3 percent; in California, the wage growth has actually been less, again, completely inconsistent with the idea that we're desperately short of workers. Let's look at two of the most labor-intensive crops, cherries and strawberries. The amount of acres planted in California over the last six years is up quite a bit.</s>SANCHEZ: Let me just stop you for a minute, if I can.</s>CAMAROTA: Sure. Go ahead.</s>SANCHEZ: So, what you're saying is, this guy and others like him, what they need to do is just start giving people more money that work for them. In other words, they're trying to get by on the cheap by paying people very little money. And obviously when we get him back, we will have him respond to that question as well. But is that your assertion?</s>CAMAROTA: Well, I think part of it would be higher wages. The other part of it is increased capitalization. They're going to have to invest in labor-saving devices and techniques, something they're really reluctant to do because we have given them so much immigrant labor in the past. And this, of course, creates very large fiscal costs for taxpayers in California. But those casts are defused. So, he doesn't really see them.</s>SANCHEZ: Steve, I understand that we have got the other Steve back now, Steve Scaroni, the farmer, with a $50 billion -- $50 million operation -- pardon me -- who's moved it south of the border. You know, there's a suggestion on the table here that maybe what you should have done is, rather than gone to Mexico, is just start paying people a little bit more, and you would have been able to come up with 500 workers on this side, in the States. How do you respond to that?</s>SCARONI: Well, Rick, first of all, I want to thank you for taking on this subject. We hear too much of the other side. And that's simply not a true statement. It's -- I'm amused by when academia and folks who maybe don't even know what a head of lettuce is make these assertions that are truly -- completely false. I'm 50 years old. I had five-way bypass surgery a year ago. Yet, I felt it was so important to diversify into Mexico, that, at 50 years old and after open-heart surgery, I have, in a sense, started over again down here in Mexico.</s>SANCHEZ: I know you have got a little noise in the background, so let me sneak in and ask this question again, because maybe you didn't hear it. Why didn't you stay here and just pay your workers more?</s>SCARONI: Rick, we have tried all those combinations, all those things that Steve mentioned. We have tried paying higher wages. And the numbers he's using in his study, I had a chance to skim that study before we came on air here. I pulled it up. And it's simply not -- there's a lot of false statements in there. And I guess it goes back to like what you asked. Who are you going to believe? I'm a guy that was born and raised in a farm. I'm telling you, at 50 years old, I had to readjust my whole operation. It's been a great personal sacrifice. I have had to move from my home of 50 years. I have had to leave my wife behind most of the time. My kids don't see me as much. And it's because of my fear that I'm going to lose my work force in the United States, because the reality is, these studies that these people cite, they don't strip away the legality of the work force that's out there.</s>SANCHEZ: Steve, let me ask you this, because I think this is important. And our viewers are watching right now, and they want to know, hey, is this going to become a trend? You talk to other farmers, some of your colleagues. Do you see others who are planning to do the same thing or have done the same thing? And we're down to about 30 seconds, by the way.</s>SCARONI: Rick, my phone is ringing off the hook with people wanting me to produce leafy green lettuce products for them down here in Mexico. All of the major chains and the retail brands you recognize are all concerned because they understand the reality of the labor threat.</s>SANCHEZ: That's an amazing development in this story. We thank both of you, Steve Camarota, who's a friend of the show and has been here many times before, and obviously Steve Scaroni, the farmer in Mexico, a story that we're going to continue to keep tabs on for you. My thanks to both of you gentlemen. Also, now, should states give driving privilege cards -- now, you notice I didn't say driver's licenses -- to illegal immigrants -- driving privilege cards. It doesn't make them legal, by the way. But it does let them get insurance. And it also lets the feds know where they are. Obviously, that's the argument on one side of the equation. We want to know what you think about this. And we want you to go to our dot-com page and let us know. Meanwhile, we will have a special report on this from Utah, to look at the pros and the cons of this one. We're back in 60 exactly seconds. Count us down.