F E B R U A R Y 2 0 1 8 POTATO GROWER 9 out of committee, future options to find a solution are preserved. As 2018 began, the House Leadership is considering resurrect- ing that bill and possibly inserting it in a larger package of immigration reform measures to deal with the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) issue. Whether those efforts will be successful is anyone’s guess at this point. What we do know is that this crisis will not solve itself. It will only grow larger and more painful as with procrastination. We also know that the solution cannot occur in pieces. An attempt to build one leg of a table at a time means the table will simply collapse on itself and a piecemeal approach to the ag labor crisis will see the same fate. Should Congress attempt to pass Mandatory E-Verify in some form and deal with the other pieces later, it will cause economic catastrophe in the agriculture industry and huge price increases for consumers. The National Potato Council con- tinues to believe that taking on this difficult issue is far preferable to allowing the crisis to build even larger. We urge all representatives to find a path forward to deliver farm- ers a secure competitive labor force for today’s marketplace and the future. DESIGN-BUILD GENERAL CONTRACTOR AGRICULTURE. FOOD PROCESSING. 1,850,000CWT OF STORAGE BUILT IN 2017 www.hansen-rice.com Over the course of 2017, the ag labor crisis grew as immigration enforcement and the rhetoric around it increased.