Many farm employers have found themselves between a wall and a hard place when it comes to hiring foreign-born laborers.

On the wall side, there is literally a full-on, frontline fortification between Mexico and vast stretches of the American Southwest, designed to keep people from breaching U.S. borders unlawfully.

The wall’s strongest proponents argue that illegal immigrants overburden enforcement agencies, pilfer social programs and steal away U.S. jobs.

On the other side are individuals who embrace these foreign-born laborers, saying they fill an insurmountable void in the workforce and embody our nation’s longstanding cultural diversities.

Caught in the middle are people who have struggled for years to come up with reliable help when the work is needed to be done.

Long gone are the days someone was hired on handshakes alone. Documentation must change hands. Penalties for doing otherwise are simply too stiff.

And even when every letter of labor law is followed, the ordeal of hiring foreign workers is often an arduous one.

As Senate Democrats work to build support for their recently unveiled immigration reform package, many pundits say the bill’s passage could be equally arduous.

Details of the legislation were released earlier this month. It calls for beefed up border security — more Border Patrol agents, better infrastructure and all-new technologies, such as fraud-proof biometric identification cards.

It contains a zero tolerance for criminals and those who sidestep immigration laws, including enhanced penalties for businesses that hire illegals by increasing fines by as much as 300 percent.

It also rewrites many applicable labor laws, including those items specific to hiring agricultural workers from outside U.S. borders.

Current policy for hiring foreign agricultural laborers falls under the H-2A guidelines, which annually provide some 50,000 workers across the country.

Workforce requirements

But as Steve Pringle, Texas Farm Bureau’s legislative director, points out, that’s only a fraction of the number needed. He pegs actual workforce needs closer to 10 times that amount.

“H-2A is currently the only avenue for getting agricultural workers into the United States,” he said. “It has never really been adequate. Unfortunately, when it comes to the type of comprehensive reforms needed in our immigration policies, the politics become downright divisive.

“Nobody really argues the need for tightening security along our borders anymore. The killings by the drug cartels have seen to that.”

So what’s the best way of accomplishing that security? That is the question of questions on Capitol Hill.

Meanwhile, neither side has a solution for the presumed millions of undocumented foreigners already inside the United States. Nor do they address how specific farm needs are met.

Texas Farm Bureau has long backed a worker program that addresses agriculture’s unique needs. The organization also supports a visa program that lasts at least three years and is renewable multiple times.

“But even within agriculture there are different sides,” Pringle said. “Some have managed to make the most of the system we have and would rather not change it. Others welcome a change, but they’re concerned by what additional burdens might be placed on employers, including additional wage requirements.”

Similar troubles toppled immigration reform attempts in 2006, during the George W. Bush administration. As current legislators are already in a lopsided partisan stall in the Senate, hope for change is wearing thin.

“We remain optimistic that something can be worked out and we will work closely with our lawmakers as they progress on the issue,” Pringle said. “The big question now will be, when?”

Bobby Horecka lives in China Spring with his wife and three children. He writes for the Texas Farm Bureau’s print publications, online news service and video projects.