Group says immigrants contribute to SC economy, calls for reform

Six years ago, about 15 farmers in Williamsburg, Clarendon and Florence counties grew cucumbers on 1,200 acres that would eventually become Vlasic pickles.

Last year, only two farmers grew cucumbers. This year, none did.

The decline wasn’t caused by the counties’ sandy soil losing its vigor, or floodwaters wiping out production. It’s because there weren’t enough temporary farm workers to hand-pick enough of the high-quality, properly sized cucumbers to meet the buyer’s demands.

“And it’s not just the farmers who are affected,” said Jeremy Cannon, who runs the 1,600-acre Cannon Ag Products farm in Turbeville. “There’s also the shipping and processing. It’s a sector problem.”

Besides giving up on cucumbers, Cannon also lost 30,000 cantaloupes this year because he had no one to pick them, costing him $10,000 in income.

Leaders of the three industries most affected by labor shortages — agriculture, construction, hospitality and high tech — came together nationally Wednesday for a “Day of Action” intended to showcase new research on immigration contributions in South Carolina and all of the other states. Organized by the Partnership for a New American Economy, Wednesday’s effort was intended to highlight the need for immigration reform in the United States, particularly expanding guest worker quotas and lessening the red tape employers have to wade through to secure them.

But the national effort comes against the backdrop Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s platform of banning all immigrants and visitors from some cultures and countries, deporting undocumented workers who are already working in the United States, and building a wall along the Mexican border.

Shell Suber, a long-time Republican operative in the state who organized news conferences for the organization in Charleston and Columbia, was asked about Trump’s immigration positions.

“Elections come and go,” he said. “The politics of the day come and go. But it’s universally agreed that the current immigration system is broken.”

Most South Carolinians support giving undocumented immigrants a path to citizenship, under specific requirements, rather than deporting them or allowing them to stay for a limited time, according to a Winthrop University poll conducted last fall. The poll showed 58 percent favored allowing undocumented immigrants to become citizens.

Among the partners in the latest call for reform are Microsoft, Google, the American Farm Bureau Federation, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the American Immigration Lawyers Association.

A report released Wednesday noted that immigrants in South Carolina make up 4.7 percent of the state’s population. In 2014, they contributed $1.3 billion in local, state and federal taxes, or 4.8 percent of the state’s total. That same year, immigrants earned $5.4 billion, or nearly 5 percent of all earnings in the state, the report showed.

It also noted that immigrants make up 9 percent of all entrepreneurs in the state and play a large role in the science, technology, engineering, and math fields, a major component of U.S. economic growth.

Suber and Cannon were joined by John Durst, chief executive of the S.C. Restaurant and Lodging Association, and Earl McLeod, executive director of the Building Industry Association of Central South Carolina.

“We all need to eat, sleep and play,” Suber said. “And these industries have been working on this for years.”

Durst noted that as tourism has rebounded since the Great Recession and with gas prices at historic lows, finding the workers to staff hotels, restaurants and other tourist- related sectors is becoming more difficult.

He said nine new hotels are planned along Interstate 77 in York County. “And we lack the support to staff them,” he said.

McLeod noted that 23 percent of construction workers in the state are immigrant workers. He said a shortage of workers is becoming more pronounced as the housing industry rebounds.

“Without workers, the recovery will end,” he said.

This story was originally published August 3, 2016 at 6:31 PM.