Nov 28, 2011
Harvest dilemma spotlights immigrant labor crisis

Washington apple farmers are so desperate for pickers, one grower hired inmates from a minimum-security state prison at $22 an hour to help with the harvest.

The dilemma demonstrates just how messed up this nation’s immigration policies are, and how some unemployed people would rather sit on their backsides than put in a day’s work at grueling manual labor.

Gov. Chris Gregoire drew the public spotlight to the farm labor shortage issue when she said, “We’re sitting on the potential of having the third-largest (apple) crop, at around 105 million boxes, and we can’t get them picked.”

The governor gave her permission for 105 inmates of the Olympic Corrections Center in Forks to harvest the high-value crop of Jazz apples for the Wenatchee-based McDougal and Sons company. The inmates were able to pick about 1,000 bins of apples in the 200-acre orchard in a matter of a few days. The Olympian

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