Matchmaker Unites Farm Workers and Employers

Janine Duron, executive director of CITA (Centro Independiente de Trabajadores Agrícolas or Independent Agricultural Workers' Center) spoke with Catholic Relief Services communications officer Sara Fajardo about CITA's role in restoring relationships among farmers and migrant workers.

Sara Fajardo:

Can you describe the process that a worker goes through from the moment they arrive at the CITA office to the moment they begin working in the U.S. fields?

Janine Duron, head of the Catholic Relief Services-sponsored Centro Independiente de Trabajadores Agrícolas, facilitated the process that helped Mexican citizens to receive their H-2A guest worker visas. Photo by Sara Fajardo/CRS

Janine Duron:

CITA recruits H-2A workers in Mexico. They visit the CITA employment center in Mexico to inquire about the possibility of getting a U.S. work visa. They are given information and put on a waiting list, informed of the probability of being hired and what steps to take to continue in the process.

Once job offers or contracts are negotiated by staff with agricultural employers, CITA staff manages the rather complicated petition process for the employers and begins the screening, qualification and educational process with the worker candidates.

CITA screens candidates to determine whether they're likely to meet the requirements for a nonimmigrant, temporary work permit. They must not have broken any laws in the United States in the past, must prove good conduct in Mexico, appear to be a suitable candidate for the arduous work in inclement weather, and interview with a U.S. consul who will perform a criminal background check.

Once approved by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, the workers are delivered into the United States by CITA staff to the employer who has contracted them. Workers are assigned to crews alongside domestic workers, and if they meet performance standards are often requested to return each year, which reduces employer training and productivity costs inherent with new workers.

CITA does not charge workers to help them obtain employment. However, the cost of applying for a visa averages $400 U.S. or equivalent in pesos, quite burdensome to the poorest of the poor. CITA is able to provide loans to limited numbers of candidates each season, repaid over the course of the work season.

Fajardo:

How many applicants do you get for the position?

Duron:

We currently have a waiting list with nearly 8,000 applicants, with fewer than 1,000 placements during each of our first two seasons in CITA's first 18 months of operations. Application periods are closed every three months to keep up with the paperwork and member contact. Were we to leave the applications open year round, applications would triple.

Fajardo:

How do you recruit?

Duron:

Word of mouth from worker to worker and families of workers. Employer referrals of workers they know, who have often worked for them before.

Fajardo:

What is the need along the border? Why is the situation so dire?

Duron:

The Yuma area is America's lettuce capital during the harvest season. Food safety is the driving concern in the industry, which is protected in part by strict hygiene standards and harvesting techniques.

The need for employment is desperate throughout Mexico. The country has always had an inordinate level of poverty, but the economic downturn we face in the United States has doubled the impact on an already poor population. Many Mexicans depended on help from family members in the United States who now find themselves back in Mexico and out of work.

The situation is now abject poverty, and those in construction, retail and factories, as well as attorneys, nurses, secretaries and pharmacists, come to CITA to seek relief from what appears to them to be quite a hopeless situation.

A group of Mexican agricultural workers—both domestic and H-2A guest worker visa holders—harvest butter leaf lettuce in Yuma, Arizona. Photo by Sara Fajardo/CRS

Fajardo:

Can you give us an example of how things have changed for workers on the Mexican side of the border?

Duron:

As the result of CITA's work, the biggest change in the workers and their families is an increased hope and a newfound self-respect and sense of significance. We believe every life is significant. People in poverty must see concrete results to know that they are respected, that someone cares enough to work amongst them and sacrifice for them.

The second big change is trust in the integrity of our process. Bribery, favoritism and fraud are absent in CITA and trust has been earned, feeding a culture of new hope. With the realization of hope, mind-sets change and energy is directed towards the pursuit of success.

Fajardo:

Can you tell us a little more about your unique approach to training employees for their new jobs?

Duron:

As a neutral, third party, we drive home the idea that workers' attitudes and actions can make or break a company. When both sides understand that, mutual loyalty improves and production increases.

Fajardo:

Part of your programming includes showing people how to budget their money and plan for the future. Why did you feel compelled to include this as part of your training?

Duron:

Coming into great but seasonal—and thus temporary—prosperity leads families to want to immediately make up for all the large and small necessities they have lived so long without. We saw workers completely broke a week after the season ended, with no means to feed their families appropriately, purchase children's school supplies or care for elderly parents once the checks stopped coming. Knowledge is power and we are compelled to help members increase their human development; increased thinking and planning skills help our members reap more from their labors.

Fajardo:

What is your ultimate goal with the program?

Duron:

To help restore America's agricultural work force one worker and one employer at a time. To improve the quality of farm labor for all farm workers. To improve the sustainability of small, earnest employers that make up the absolute majority of agricultural businesses in America.

Fajardo:

Why do you choose to do this type of work?

Duron:

I believe there is a call in everyone's life and every organization to fulfill a certain role in the world around him or her, and I want to give my best in the area to which I have been prepared. I respect what Catholic Relief Services Mexico stands for and what the donors stand for and what they accomplish.

I have been given the privilege to show our Mexican neighbors for the people they are: not terrorists or drains on our economy, but the vital workers, fathers, mothers, sons and daughters who play an important role in our economy and well-being. They are a blessing this country can ill afford to reject.