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The 20 year long ever-escalating assault on immigrant workers has caused a severe labor shortage here. The H2A workers - from the same places non-GH2A workers came from, not from "overseas" - are more expensive and less efficient. It is not a good deal for the growers nor for the workers. It is a stop gap to keep food production from moving overseas. Republicans want to have their cake and eat it, too - terrorize immigrants without impacting food supply. Of course, Wall Street doesn't mind food production moving overseas. In this case, cherry production is moving to Turkey - fewer environmental regulations and worker protections, bigger profits for the corporate food industry and better ROI for investors.

Tart cherries are mechanically harvested, not hand-picked. So there is that. The farm labor is needed mostly for other crops.

$200,000 is hardly "whopping." 10 workers for the season for one small farm, maybe? It is nothing. That includes transportation to the US and housing. The "whopping" amounts of taxpayer money are being spent on Gestapo raids and concentration camp detention and rendition, targeting the experienced and motivated workers coming here on their own and trying to build a future for their families.

Ag subsidies, in general, are for the benefit of the eaters, not so much the growers. There is a long tradition for this, going back to the formation of the land grant college system, cooperative extension, the public health agencies, Farm Credit, the USDA, etc. We should not be using Republican "a waste of taxpayers money" arguments about this.