Yakama tribe considers licensing farmworkers

A member of the Yakama Nation is working to create a tribal guest-worker program that would require licenses or permits for foreign workers and nontribal citizens working on reservation lands.

The tribal council recently approved the program, Schaptakay Labor Works LLC, which is incorporated under the tribe. Former tribal Councilman Wendell Hannigan now plans to talk to growers in hopes of getting their cooperation.

Yakama land has many orchards, hop fields and vineyards that lure a large migrant work force each year. But tribal leaders have no way of knowing who is coming onto the 1.2 million-acre reservation, whether they are in the U.S. legally and how long they plan to stay.

Hannigan said concerns about crime on the reservation and a growing number of undocumented workers in the area prompted him to consider such a program. He says he's not trying to hamper the farming industry, but wants to help create a legal and stable work force on the reservation.

"Hopefully, the community would embrace that effort," he told the Yakima Herald-Republic for a story Tuesday.

Agriculture officials are giving a mixed response to the effort, which may be the first of its kind in Indian country.

Dan Fazio, director of employer services with the state Farm Bureau, said he's interested in the plan.

But Mike Gempler of the Washington Growers League isn't convinced that a tribe could obtain authority in immigration issues, a responsibility that largely belongs to the federal government.

"I think we would need to see what the position of the United States government was before we would be willing to take the next step," he said.

Yakama leaders did not return several phone calls seeking comment on the issue.

Because tribes receive federal benefits and tribal members are U.S. citizens, they are not viewed as sovereign nations when it comes to immigration law, said federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokeswoman Lorie Dankers in Seattle.

Dankers said the Yakamas probably would not have the authority to enforce U.S. immigration laws, but she declined to elaborate, saying she would need to do more research with federal attorneys at ICE.

More than 150 years ago, the Yakamas ceded more than 10 million acres of their traditional lands to the federal government in exchange for exclusive use of their reservation and retaining hunting, fishing and food-gathering rights in the ceded territory.

However, federal laws removed much of the reservation land from the tribe. Today, the Yakama reservation is a checkerboard of tribal and nontribal ownership. Some farmers have their own privately owned land, while others lease land from the tribe.

The Yakamas may be the first tribe to consider a guest-worker program, said Matthew Fletcher, director of the Indigenous Law and Policy Center at Michigan State University.

Non-Indians outnumber tribal members on many reservations, but few other tribes have the large influx of migrant workers that the Yakamas do, he said.

"I don't think its a big problem (in Indian Country) yet, but you're seeing a lot of tribes buying resorts in rural areas, and resorts depend on a migrant work force," he said.

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Information from: Yakima Herald-Republic, http://www.yakima-herald.com