Updated May 24, 2010 - 5:38 pm
Eastern Washington farm hires 300 Jamaican workers
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digg thisA farm in Eastern Washington is employing hundreds of Jamaican workers to replace the illegal immigrants it lost after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement investigation last year.
Gebbers Farms in Brewster, WA, which grows apple and cherry trees, is hiring 300 workers from Jamaica through the H-2A visa program, issuing temporary agricultural visas.
Gebbers Farms is certified through the Department of Labor to hire foreign workers.
Mike Gempler, with the Washington Growers League, told KIRO Radio's Dave Ross, that US citizens get the opportunity to apply for the jobs, but that the farm still didn't find enough Americans to harvest its fruit.
Gempler said, "The problem is there's no guarantee that the people looking for jobs now will have legal documents. So you have businesses that are subject to enforcement actions by Department of Homeland Security."
Gempler added that Jamaica has a long history of sending people to the U.S. for farm jobs. "I think they just wanted to try out this particular program."
Jamaica's Minister of Labour and Social Security, Pearnel Charles, held a ceremony to send off the first 50 farm workers May 5. Another group departed the island May 12 and the remaining employees will leave June 3.
According to the Jamaica Observer, Charles said it was the "conduct and performance which would determine whether their contracts are renewed at the end of the six-month period."
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