Source:  POLITICO'S MORNING AGRICULTURE, 3/22/21

Amid a surge in border migration, Republicans are effectively slamming the brakes on any immigration reform in the Senate. Even bipartisan measures, like the House-passed bill to create a path to citizenship for thousands of farmworkers and expand the H-2A agricultural visa program, appear destined to languish in the evenly divided chamber.

Still, the farmworker bill has more bipartisan support than the so-called Dream and Promise Act, which would provide a path to citizenship for an estimated 2 million undocumented immigrants who were brought to the U.S. as children. (Thirty House Republicans voted for the ag-focused bill, compared to just nine GOP votes for the Dreamer bill.)

The sponsors: Sens. Michael Bennet (D-Colo.) and Mike Crapo (R-Idaho) have announced plans to introduce a companion Senate bill. Other GOP senators have mentioned it as a potential priority, POLITICO’s Burgess Everett reports.

On the other hand, the influential American Farm Bureau Federation is not backing the legislation, saying that “flaws and shortcomings in the bill are too great for us to support it,” per the Food and Environment Reporting Network.