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Immigrant issues key for industry.

Article Excerpt
Byline: Susan Palmer The Register-Guard

MONROE - On an overcast afternoon, Edgardo Rodriguez supervises a crew of eight men spraying for weeds between 3-year-old grand fir saplings on a gently sloping hill west of town. There's year-round work to be done on a Christmas tree farm. As the weather warms, pruners will come in to groom the trees. By Thanksgiving, they will be cutting, wrapping and loading trees for holiday transport.

Rodriguez moved here from Jalisco, Mexico, and has worked at the Monroe Tree Farm for 15 years. Like many people across the nation, he's been watching the immigration reform debate with concern.

While Rodriguez has a work permit, not everyone laboring in Oregon's agriculture industry is so fortunate.

The state has no way of tracking how many people are working here illegally, said state labor economist Art Ayre, but according to a Pew Hispanic Center report, Oregon had between 100,000 and 150,000 illegal immigrants in 2004.

"They came here for one reason," Rodriguez said. "To work."

According to federal census data, Oregon's Hispanic work force grew three times as fast as the nation's, from 49,000 in 1990 to 181,000 in 2003, a 269 percent increase. Almost 10 percent of Oregon's labor force is Hispanic, according to state labor data.

Estimates on the number of the illegal migrants in the nation ranges from 9 million to 13 million.

The debate over what to do about...

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