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May 25, 2017  |  VIEW IN BROWSER

From the Desk of the AFOP Executive Director

    “There’s a certain philosophy wrapped up in the budget and that is — we are no longer going to measure compassion by the number of programs or the number of people on those programs.We’re not going to measure our success by how much money we spend, but by how many people we actually help.”
 — White House OMB Director Mick Mulvaney

Welcome to budget season in Washington, D.C., when the projections for economic growth are rosy and inflation assumptions are [Read Full Analysis]

Inside AFOP

PathStone Pennsylvania Selected to Run One-Stop in Chester County

PathStone Senior Vice President for Direct Services Nita D’Agostino and her team have won the competition to operate the American Job Center (AJC) in Chester County, Pennsylvania.  The county previously ran the one-stop, but recognized it could not do as well as PathStone in meeting the requirements of the new Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.  As the one-stop operator, PathStone will be responsible for the coordination of services at the AJC.  Nita will directly supervise the one-stop administrator.  Evelyn Rodriguez, PathStone Senior Director for T&E Services, will oversee the Title I Youth one-stop team providing services to youth ages 16-24.  PathStone will continue to provide services to TANF, SNAP, and Work Ready recipients through EARN & Work Ready.  The projects start July 1.

Kari Hogan Receives National Recognition

Press Release by Ellen Campbell (5/17)
Worldwide Branding has recognized PPEP’s Kari Hogan for her excellence in administrative management bringing positive change to the lives of youth suffering from extensive trauma. [Read More]
 

AFOP in Washington

Jaime Mata with KellyAnne Conway (04/17)

Jaime Mata of California Employment and Training (CET) talks National Farmworker Jobs Program funding needs with White House advisor Kellyanne Conway in Washington, D.C. in late March.  Earlier that day, Mr. Mata joined AFOP President Jeffrey Lewis, PPEP’s Kari Hogan, and AFOP Executive Director Daniel Sheehan in a meeting with House Education and the Workforce Chairman Virginia Foxx (R-North Carolina) to discuss NFJP successes.

NFJP Success Stories

Nelson J. Maldonado Rosado (5/17)

Before starting his high school senior year, Nelson worked in a dairy farm to help with his family’s finances. He was happy he did because, as a result of that work, he was eligible to receive National Farmworker Jobs Program (NFJP) training and employment services from PathStone.
Nelson’s family could not afford to pay for college, so when he went searching for a short course of instruction that was of interest to him, and learned that PathStone could offer him that opportunity and find him a job, too. [Read More]

FL FCDP Collier Student Success

by AFOP (5/23)
Juan Aguilar grew up in LaBelle, Florida where his parents were seasonal farm workers. They provided for him and his siblings by [Read More]

United States Department of Labor News

Acosta Sworn in as Labor Secretary
DOL NEWS

On April 28, 2017, the United Stated Department of Labor welcomed Alexander Acosta, who was sworn in as the twenty-seventh U.S. Labor Secretary.  [Read more about Secretary Acosta]

United States Labor Secretary Issues First Blog

DOL BLOG

He says he wants to help Americans find good jobs. [Read More]

WorkforceGPS May Newsletter Issued

President’s Fiscal Year 2018 Budget Proposal

Coalition on Human Needs Makes the Case for Investments in Critical Human-Needs Programs Like NFJP

Minority health programs cut by 10 percent. Juvenile justice programs cut nearly in half. Housing for the elderly cut by 46 percent; housing for people with disabilities cut nearly 57 percent. Job training to assist ex-offenders reintegrating into their communities cut nearly 28 percent [Read More (5/16)]

Governors to Congress: Keep Your Promises to States on Education and Workforce Funding

Saying that state economies are built on a foundation of education and workforce training, the National Governors Association has urged Congress to “uphold the state-federal partnership on this foundation, build on the investments in the fiscal year 2017 omnibus, and prioritize funding for federal education and workforce programs in the budget and appropriations for fiscal year 2018.”  Read more.

Trump’s Budget Targets Rural Development Programs That Provide a Quiet Lifeline

By Jose A. DelReal (3/21)
"I am disappointed that many of the reductions and eliminations proposed in the president’s skinny budget are draconian, careless and counterproductive,”
said U.S. House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers (R-KY). Residents of rural areas weighed in on the proposed budget cuts, too:
“When you’re in a big city, it’s like the money just rolls in. Everybody gets a piece of the pie. But when you’re a smaller place, they don’t look at you as viable so they don’t want to waste money on you,”
said Danielle King, a Mount Sterling, Kentucky, resident.
“They don’t see our needs; they don’t live here. " [Read more]

AFOP Health & Safety

<br><br> Lupe Martinez, President and Chief Executive Officer, UMOS (l) stands next to Tom Perez, Secretary USDOL (r) on a recent visit to Milwaukee.

Farmworker Justice Decries EPA Pesticide Decision
By Oliver Milman (5/17)

According to Farmworker Justice (FJ), United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt is discarding science and morality by ignoring the effects of toxic pesticides on the brain development of the fetuses, infants and children of farmworkers to help chemical corporations’ profits.  FJ reported that, in late March, Administrator Pruitt decided not to ban use of the toxic pesticide chlorpyrifos in agriculture.  The industry is demanding other harmful decisions on pesticides that harm farmworkers and their children.  Chlorpyrifos is so dangerous to humans that it was already banned for household use.  Why should farmworker families be discriminated against? Children of farmworkers are exposed to pesticides through spray drift onto homes and school playgrounds near fields where fruits and vegetables grow, through contaminated water supplies, and when they are working in the fields.  After more than a decade of seeking to ban chlorpyrifos for farming, EPA last year finally announced its intent to ban chlorpyrifos.  It should have stuck with its plan.  This disheartening decision was made during national Farmworker Awareness Week just hours before Cesar Chavez Day celebrating the birthday of the late civil rights and farmworker leader.  See The Guardian’s reporting on this matter. [Read More]

2017 Childhood Agricultural Injuries Fact Sheet Released

<br><br> Lupe Martinez, President and Chief Executive Officer, UMOS (l) stands next to Tom Perez, Secretary USDOL (r) on a recent visit to Milwaukee.
Report by National Children's Center for Rural and Agricultural Health & Safety (3/17)
Every three days, a child dies in an agriculture-related incident, and each day, 33 children are injured according to the 2017 Childhood Agricultural Injuries Fact Sheet compiled by the National Children’s Center for Rural and Agricultural Health and Safety [Read More]

Your Farm is Trying to Kill You

By Ian Kullgren (4/12)

Far from a bucolic idyll, farming in America is one of its most dangerous professions. And almost no one is trying to change that [Read More]

Children in the Fields Campaign 2017

Children in the Fields Campaign 2017 Migrant & Seasonal Farmworker Children Essay and Art Contests Accepting Entries

 


AFOP’s Children in the Fields Campaign (CIFC) is now accepting submissions for the 2017 Migrant & Seasonal Farmworker Children Essay and Art Contests. The selected theme for this year’s contests is “Growing Up in the Fields that Feed America.”  Through the annual contest, CIFC has been able to collect hundreds of entries from farmworker youth across the country, giving them the opportunity to showcase their heartwarming and compelling stories on a national stage.  Our mission is to show America the realities farmworker families face through the eyes of their children, and to spur action to provide better educational support to our farmworker youth.  There will be a total of 12 winners across four categories.  Winners will receive a small scholarship to cover educational expenses, and our first-place winners will be invited to AFOP’s National Conference (#AFOP2017) on September 20th, 2017 in Las Vegas, Nevada.

       The deadline for contests submissions is June 30, 2017. Please submit essays, art, and applications to:

Ms. Tiffany Baker
Children in the Fields Campaign Project Manager
Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs
1120 20th Street, N.W., Suite 300 South     
Washington, DC 20036
 
Winners will be notified via telephone or by mail by mid-July.  

For more information, Please contact Tiffany Baker at
Contest guidelines and applications can be found on the CIFC Website and attached here:

CIF English – Contests Guidelines and Application
CIF Spanish – Contests Guidelines and Application

Immigration News

Farmworker Justice Webinar for NFJP Grantees June 6


Farmworker Justice will present a webinar for NFJP grantees on Tuesday, June 6 from 1:00 p.m. (EDT) to 2:00 p.m. (EDT) on Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) activities in and around job-training facilities, Senator Dianne Feinstein’s (D-California) new agricultural worker bill, and a summary of recent court hearings on immigration matters. 

Trump’s Anti-Immigrant Policies Are Scaring Eligible Families Away From the Safety Net
By Annie Lowrey (3/24)

The president’s immigration executive order, a series of public raids, and a draft executive order to push families off benefit programs, have made families afraid of utilizing the safety net. Of 20 organizations working with documented and undocumented immigrants consulted for this story, 17 said they have seen legally eligible families declining to enroll in or dropping out of SNAP and other safety net programs. “Nobody’s talking about the downstream effects on kids squeezed out of these programs, because of rule changes or simple fear,” said one expert.  [Read more]

What We Get Wrong When We Talk About Food Stamps And Immigrants

By Joseph Erbentraut (3/24)

The president’s immigration executive order, a series of public raids, and a draft executive order to push families off benefit programs, have made families afraid of utilizing the safety net. Of 20 organizations working with documented and undocumented immigrants consulted for this story, 17 said they have seen legally eligible families declining to enroll in or dropping out of SNAP and other safety net programs.
Nobody’s talking about the downstream effects on kids squeezed out of these programs, because of rule changes or simple fear
—said one expert.  [Read more]

The Facts on Immigration Today: 2017 Edition
by Michael Nicholson (4/20)

Immigration has long supported the growth and dynamism of the U.S. economy. Immigrants and refugees are entrepreneurs, job creators, taxpayers, and consumers. They add trillions of dollars to the U.S. gross domestic product, or GDP, and their economic importance will only increase in the coming decades as America’s largest generation—the baby boomers—retires en masse, spurring labor demand and placing an unprecedented burden on the social safety net. Still, additional benefits to the U.S. economy and society more broadly could be obtained through legislative reforms designed to modernize the U.S. immigration system and provide unauthorized immigrants in the country today with a path to citizenship.
 
Nevertheless, despite the positive impacts of immigrants on the United States’ economy and society, the tenor of the new administration threatens to move the United States to a more restrictionist policy environment. Increased immigration enforcement—as well as potential restrictions on legal immigration and refugee resettlement—will impose fiscal costs on taxpayers and threaten immigrants, their families, and their communities across the country. Here are the latest and most essential facts about immigrants and immigration reform in the nation today. [Read More]

For Earthquake Haitians, Another Deportation Reprieve
May 22, 2017 Press Release

Homeland Security Secretary John F. Kelly granted a six-month extension Monday to 58,000 Haitian immigrants who have been spared from deportation since the devastating 2010 earthquake in Haiti, saying the conditions in their struggling homeland are not stable enough to force them to return.  Secretary Kelly said the Haitians, whose permission to stay in the United States was to end in July, may now stay until January 22, 2018.  He said he would monitor conditions in the Caribbean nation, but added that the Haitian immigrants should prepare to return home next year.  The announcement did not please advocates on either side of the immigration debate, and foreshadows the battles to come next year when administration will decide the fate of about 263,000 people from El Salvador, whose temporary protected status expires in March.  Protection for about 86,000 Hondurans is set to end in January.  Read Secretary Kelly's full statement here.

Maryland Legal Aid, Others Seek Improved Access to Farmworker Camps
Rivero v. Montgomery (5/17)

Maryland Legal Aid and other groups have been seeking improved access to labor camps.  With the help of the American Civil Liberties Union of Maryland and the law firm Cohen Milstein, they won the linked camp-access opinion from the United States District Court in Maryland.  See opinion Here.

What We’re Reading

The Invisible Ones: How Latino Children Are Left Out of Our Nation's Census Count


More than 24 percent of U.S. children under age 5 are Hispanic, and this proportion is projected to grow to 32 percent by 2050. Nearly two-thirds (62 percent) of Hispanic children live in low-income households—that is, with incomes below two times the federal poverty line. As the country’s fastest-growing sector of the child population, Latino children’s healthy development is critical to the future social and economic well-being of the country. A more accurate count would make the allocation of resources to these children and families more equitable and in line with their actual numbers. [Read More]

Building Good Jobs into America's Infrastructure Investments
By The Aspen Institute (3/21)

The Aspen Institute recently hosted "Building Good Jobs into America's Infrastructure Investments," a panel discussion that brought together a variety of experience and viewpoints about the opportunities for work created by infrastructure projects, as well as the benefits of renewed infrastructure for both workers and businesses.  [Read More]


Poll: A Record Number of Americans Say Government ‘Should Do More’
by (4/23)

In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, 57 percent of respondents said that government should do more to solve the problems and meet the needs of Americans, versus 39 percent who feel the government is doing too much. This is the highest share of Americans wanting a more active government since the poll began in 1995, and an increase from 2016 when 50 percent said the government should do more, compared to 46 percent who said government was too active. The shift to yearning for government to do more has been particularly significant among independents and Republicans.  [Read More]
The AFOP Washington Newsline (ISSN# 1056-8565) is produced by the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs (AFOP), a national federation of agencies serving migrant and seasonal farmworkers. AFOP’s mission is to improve the quality of life for migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their families by providing advocacy for the member organizations that serve them.

The publication is funded by subscriptions and the members of AFOP. The Washington Newsline receives no financial support from the federal government. Staff may be reached by calling (202) 384-1754.
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Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs

1120 20th Street, N.W. |  Suite 300 South
Washington, D.C. 20036

Phone: (202) 384-1754
Website: www.afop.org

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