Source: UC DAVIS, RURAL MIGRATION NEWS, 11/20/20


The H-2 (A) program has since 1952 allowed US farmers who anticipate too few US workers to fill seasonal farm jobs to be certified to recruit and employ guest workers. During the 1950s, the then H-2 program certified fewer than 10,000 US farm jobs a year to be filled with foreign farm workers, while over 450,000 Mexican Braceros a year were admitted.

After the Bracero program ended in 1964, DOL required farm employers to pay H-2 guest workers and US workers a special minimum wage called the Adverse Effect Wage Rate at a time when US farm workers were not covered by the minimum wage. As a result, H-2 certifications remained low during the 1970s and 1980s,

The H-2 program was changed to H-2A in the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, and was expected to expand as federal sanctions on employers reduced the employment of unauthorized workers. Instead, unauthorized migration surged in the 1990s, the Florida sugarcane harvest that employed 10,000 H-2A workers was mechanized, and the H-2A program certified fewer than 20,000 farm jobs a year.

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