USDA: 500,500 workers hired on farms are illegal

USDA: 500,500 workers hired on farms are illegal

Betty Beard
The Arizona Republic

An updated profile of farmworkers estimates there are about 1.1 million hired workers in the U.S. and half of those lack legal authorization to work in the country.

Those 1.1 million hired workers comprise about a third of all agricultural workers. Another 2.05 million are self-employed or unpaid family members.

About 60 percent of all the hired workers do crop work, and the other 40 percent work in the livestock industry. Over the past 20 years, crop farmworkers have shifted to the Southwest and West. Most are located in the Southwest, with California and Texas accounting for almost one-third of the $22 billion spent in 2002 on hired farm labor.

Although hundreds work every fall through winter in the Yuma area picking produce, Arizona did not place among the top 15 states hiring the most workers in 2002.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture's Economic Research Service said hired farmworkers remain the most economically disadvantaged workers in the country.