Colorado immigration effort stymied

Here is a link from an AP story about an immigration effort in Colorado that seeks to make it easier for growers to navigate the H-2A program. But, like everything else about immigration reform, not everybody agrees on the approach. From the AP:

A proposal to help farmers hire temporary workers from Mexico is running into more opposition at the state Capitol which could force it to be scaled back.

Farmers facing worker shortages and fearful of immigration crackdowns want the state to step in to help them negotiate the cumbersome application process for the federal H2-A guest worker program so they can hire legal, foreign employees. But on Thursday a series of immigrant advocates urged a panel of state lawmakers to reject the idea, saying that the existing federal program is a form of indentured servitude that allows workers, whose visas are tied to their jobs, to be exploited.

TK: Stories like these make me wonder if comprehensive immigration reform and border enforcement can ever co-exist. Without recognition from immigration advocates that a workable guest worker program is needed by growers, there is little hope that comprehensive immigration reform will ever provide more than a pathway to citizenship for undocumented workers and a temporary respite of legal workers for agriculture. To me, the question of whether comprehensive immigration reform can lead to efforts to truly stem illegal immigration and reform the H-2A program is unanswered.