Feinstein: Trump immigration plan bad for agriculture

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) is warning that an immigration plan backed by President Trump  would be bad for agriculture.

“We’re the largest agricultural producer in America. It’s a $50 billion industry. We employ tens of thousands of agricultural workers,” she told CNN late Wednesday.

“They are among a class that this would be prohibited. It would cripple agriculture if they didn’t have the people coming in to do this work.”

{mosads}Feinstein said Americans won’t labor “in 100 degrees temperature.”

“So you would have a severe crippling of the largest ag industry in America,” she added.

Trump earlier Wednesday teamed up with two conservative GOP senators to roll out new legislation aimed at dramatically curbing legal immigration to the U.S.

Sens. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and David Perdue (R-Ga.) have been working with White House officials to revise and expand a bill released earlier this year that would halve the number of people who receive legal permanent residence over a decade.

The president told reporters that the measure “would represent the most significant reform to our immigration system in half a century.”

The legislation would move the U.S. to a “merit-based” immigration system and away from the current model, which is largely based on family ties.