A federal program that helps hundreds of migrant workers advance beyond northern Beaufort County's tomato fields might be uprooted this year.
Funding for the National Farmworker Jobs Program, which provides permanent job placement, health care, education, emergency assistance and other services for seasonal farm workers, was excluded from the Bush administration's budget request in February to the U.S. Congress.
David Strauss, executive director of the Association of Farmworker Opportunity Programs, said Bush should have allocated $77 million. He said that would be a small amount in the federal budget for a small program that consistently produces big results, considering there are 2.5 million migrant and seasonal farm workers in the nation.
"This issue of trying to eliminate the program is a pretty outrageous attempt to take away the American dream from people who work very hard for us," Strauss said. "They grow the food for all of us."
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http://www.lowcountrynow.com/stories/060104/LOCmigrants.shtml