Bipartisan agreement on need for more farm workers

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans and Democrats said Tuesday that farmers should be allowed to hire foreign workers more easily as Congress reworks U.S. immigration laws. But there was some disagreement on how it should happen.

Lawmakers and witnesses at a House Judiciary subcommittee hearing said the visa program that lets farmers hire foreign agricultural workers is so unwieldy it accounts for only a very small percentage of the hundreds of thousands of farm workers hired in the U.S. Half or more of agriculture workers are here illegally, experts agree.