Rep. Mark Meadows talks immigration at Tri-Hishtil

U.S. Rep. Mark Meadows made several stops in Henderson County and the district Monday, starting off at Mills River plant grafting and greenhouse operation Tri-Hishtil.

Bert Lemkes, Tri-Hishtil general manager, led Meadows on a tour of the facility. He showed Meadows the grafting process from start to finish and detailed what the company has been able to accomplish almost three years to the day since it broke ground at the School House Road site.

Lemkes demostrated how the company grafts plants to combine the best of two different varieties, like disease resistance and great taste for watermelons, and how the savings from having to fumigate soil can allow farmers to have better yields while using fewer chemicals.

The facility – the largest and first of its kind in the U.S. – can turn out as many as 250,000 to 300,000 plants a week and employs 98 mostly seasonal workers, he said.

Labor is the No. 1 concern for the county’s growers, Mark Williams, executive director of Agribusiness Henderson County, said during this year's Apple Gorwer's School. Williams was also at Tri-Hishtil, and said he’s optimistic because immigration is currently being talked about in Congress.

Williams noted that in Henderson County, there’s an estimated year-round agricultural labor force of about 4,000 people, which seasonally goes up to around 7,000. He estimates that roughly 80 percent is immigrant labor.

“The optimism is that it’s being discussed,” Williams said. “We know that it’s maybe moved forward a little bit from having been on the backburner, so that’s the optimism. It’s not so much the legislation we’ve seen proposed, but it gets the conversation started.”

The House is currently considering a number of legislative changes around immigration, including mandating that employers use the e-Verify system and providing some protections for Dreamers, or young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children, according to the Associated Press.

Meadows said Monday he sees opportunities in what’s being considered in the House, and said the final piece of legislation will "have Western North Carolina’s fingerprints all over it from an immigration standpoint."

He said he’s had several conversations with growers and farmers on the ag component of immigration. His commitment to them when it comes to DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which allows for the protection of immigrants brought to the country illegally as children, is that “we’re going to actually get it right for ag." He added that he’s spoken with President Donald Trump about it.

There’s an emerging willingness to look at the ag labor market a little differently than some of the other markets, Meadows said. He's hopeful “we’ll get something addressed in the next 30 days or so.”

On e-Verify, Meadows said he is one of the few members of Congress who has actually used the system, understanding both the good and bad of it.

“I think the real concern is how does e-Verify work with our ag groups and will it eliminate their temporary workforce,” he said. “I think in the end that gets modified.”

Whether that modification comes as a waiver for ag businesses or something modified in terms of the e-Verify component, “we’ll see that happening in this final legislation,” he said.

On a path to legal status for seasonal workers, Meadows said he’s found most of those workers don’t want to become citizens, though the bill he’s supported has in it a path to citizenship over time.

Workers not being afraid of deportation is a critical component. "The main thing in talking to Bert (Lemkes) and Mark (Williams) is really looking at making sure you have a workforce that you don’t have to worry about them getting nervous when a guy in a suit walks through on whether they’re going to be deported or not," he said.

It’s been a healthy conversation for him, being able to talk to the people affected the most, Meadows said.