"The GOP Wants To Bring in More Migrant Guest Workers—But For Much Lower Pay," 1 Nov 2017

...The latest attempt [to reform the guest worker program for farmworkers] is a bill by Virginia Rep. Robert Goodlatte...[the bill] would overhaul the current...program and replace it with a new H-2C visa for bringing in foreign agricultural workers to the US. In contrast to the current H2-A visa,...

[T]he Agricultural Guestworker Act would cap the number of visas at 450,000 a year, and allow workers to be able to stay year-round, while eliminating the requirement that employers provide free housing and transportation...H-2C also expands the definition of “agricultural labor,” opening up the visa to workers in industries with year-round employment needs, such as the dairy and meat-processing industries, as well as to the forestry industry...The Department of Agriculture, rather than the Department of Labor, would oversee the program...

Adrienne DerVartanian, director of immigration and labor policy at Farmworker Justice, called the bill “a recipe for worker exploitation. The proposed legislation would slash workers’ wages; eliminate key wage protections; order employers to withhold 10 percent of workers’ wages as a form of bond; and shift the costs of housing and transportation to the workers...,” said DerVartanian...

Saket Soni, executive director of the National Guestworkers Alliance, [said]...[s]hifting the program’s oversight to the USDA rather than the DOL was...“bizarre,”...“What you’re doing is asking meat inspectors to enforce our nation’s labor laws and protect migrant workers in what is already a reprehensibly exploitative program."...