Weighing in on workers

Unlike most Indian reservations in the country, the Yakama Nation is composed of many orchards, hop fields and vineyards that lure a large migrant work force each year.

But tribal leaders have no way of knowing just exactly 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.

At least one tribal member wants to change that. Wendell Hannigan, a former tribal councilman, plans to establish a Yakama guest-worker program that would require licenses or permits for nontribal citizens and non-U.S. citizens working on reservation lands.

The Tribal Council recently approved his guest-worker program -- Schaptakay Labor Works, LLC -- which is incorporated under the tribe, and now he plans to talk to growers in hopes of getting them to cooperate.

Hannigan said concerns about crime on the reservation and a growing number of undocumented workers in the area prompted him last year 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 workforce on the reservation by documenting legal workers and rooting out illegal immigrants, most of whom are from Mexico.

"Hopefully, the community would embrace that effort," Hannigan said.

His effort, which may be the first of its kind in Indian Country, is receiving a mixed response from agricultural officials.

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

But Mike Gempler with 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 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 would probably not have the authority to enforce U.S. immigration laws. She declined to elaborate further, saying she would need to do more research with federal attorneys at ICE.

She said ICE would review Hannigan's proposal.

More than 150 years ago, the Yakamas ceded more than 10 million acres of their traditional lands to the federal government in the 1855 Treaty. In exchange, they retained their traditional hunting, fishing and food gathering rights in those areas as well as the exclusive use of their reservation.

But not long after the treaty was signed, federal laws were approved that yanked much of the reservation land from the tribe.

Today, the Yakama's reservation land is a checkerboard of tribal and nontribal ownership.

Some farmers have their own privately owned land while others lease land from the tribe. More than 150,000 acres of apples, cherries, hops, asparagus and vineyards lure thousands of migrant workers each year to the reservation.

Hannigan said he's not aware of any agency that has figures on the number of migrant workers that work on the reservation each year.

The lack of that information was the driving force behind the tribal council's recent decision to approve his program, he said.

"We're moving into uncharted water, virtually," he said. "I don't think there has been anyone who has done anything like that on the reservation."

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.

"I haven't heard of another tribe trying to do this, he said.

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

"I don't think it's 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 workforce," he added.

Though Latinos have been part of the Lower Valley community for decades, there's been some uneasiness among some Native Americans about the impact immigrants are having on local schools, available jobs and their cultural identity.

Tribal members had long complained that Lehigh John, the longtime manager of the tribe's commercial and agricultural businesses, had been hiring Mexicans ahead of Native Americans to work in orchards. They also claimed that non-Indians were being provided tribal housing. John was fired in May 2007.

The tribe also has seen an increasing amount of illegal marijuana crops on the reservation over the past several years.

This summer alone, more than $140 million in illicit grows on the reservation were uprooted by authorities, who believe the grows were linked to a cartel in Mexico.

Hannigan believes a guest worker program on the reservation would help thwart crime by identifying who is here.

"We all know there's illegal activity that's pretty much ongoing," he said.

Hannigan said his program would first focus on field workers, and eventually expand to packing centers and warehouses in Wapato and Toppenish.

His hope is that growers leasing tribal land or farming their own land will voluntarily comply with his program by submitting guest worker information that would be compiled into a computer database.

Fazio said he sees merit in Hannigan's program given the stringent requirements growers have to follow under the federal H2A guest worker program.

Under that program, growers have to work with five different federal agencies to get foreign workers here. They are also responsible for transportation and housing costs for guest workers and face paying them a minimum wage nearly $2 an hour higher than the state's minimum wage of $8.07 an hour, Fazio said.

Anything that would lesson the burden on growers and simplify the process would be largely accepted, he said.

"I've heard this guy is pretty innovative," he said of Hannigan. "I think he wants what everyone wants -- a legal and stable workforce."

Apple grower Burt Pence, who owns Pence Farms in Wapato, said he wasn't aware of Hannigan's plan, but said he can't afford the H2A route because he has a small farm and only needs about 20 guest workers a year.

"Small guys like me -- I'm 90 acres -- it would be real hard to put up housing for just the 20 people I would need for a certain time of year," he said. "Better and simpler are both good, and I think everyone is interested in that," he said.

Fletcher, at Michigan State University, admits that it will be trickier for the tribe to assert any authority over workers on land privately owned by non-Indians on the reservation.

"In fact, it's going to be practically impossible," he said.

Federal court rulings have generally run against tribes trying to enforce authority over private land, he said.

The potential success for Hannigan's proposal to identify and permit immigrants on the Yakama reservation would largely depend on cooperation from employers, he said.

Hannigan said he'd need help from growers and the tribe to eventually set up an office for the program, computer software and possible housing.

"This is what we're really trying to forge, is an alliance between the tribe and the growers, which hasn't always been there," he said.

n Phil Ferolito can be reached at 577-7749, or by e-mail at pferolito@yakimaherald.com.

Here is an excerpt from Article 2 of the 1855 Yakama Treaty outlining the use of the reservation:

All which tract shall be set apart and, so far as necessary, surveyed and marked out, for the exclusive use and benefit of said confederated tribes and bands of Indians, as an Indian reservation, nor shall any white man, excepting those in the employment of the Indian Department, be permitted to reside upon the said reservation without permission of the tribe and the superintendent and agent\

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