immediate investigation shall be made, and if it shall appear that the the complaint has merit-you don't have to go out and establish ityou shall immediately be able to apply for, and obtain, an injunction. Senator MONDALE. The point is to provide an immediate remedy. Mr. O'HARA. That's right. Otherwise, it is no good. The harvest season is the only time there is a great need for labor in the fields. The harvest season is very short. The question would be moot very quickly. So I would recommend that.

Finally, I think, Mr. Chairman, and most evidently what we need to do for the long-term health and success of this industry, grower and worker alike, is to apply the same rules and regulations, the same modus operandi that has been applied to all U.S. industry and labor under the Wagner Act, the agriculture industry.

I think that is the great need, and I would strongly suggest that we do that.

In closing, Mr. Chairman, let me report to you a very recent development in the grape boycott. My wife, who is my mentor in these matters, reports to me that in her visit to the Giant Supermarket yesterday she found grapes on the counter labeled "imported African Valencia grapes," 49 cents a pound.

She said they were not only imported African Valencia grapes, but came in wrappers that said "Safco, Chile," and in boxes from California. [Laughter.]

Senator MONDALE. That must be a very tired and neurotic grape. [Laughter.]

Mr. O'HARA. It is a well-traveled grape, Mr. Chairman, that we now find on our market shelf.

Senator MONDALE. Perhaps you could describe a little bit more than you did in your opening testimony what you saw on the border, which I assume to be a rather typical morning, because they didn't know you were coming, and you were just there to see who came across. What kind of indications of legitimacy in terms of entrance into the American labor market did commuters have?

Could you tell us something about the number of persons, about the indications of citizenship, or green-card status, or baptismal certificates, and so forth, that were accepted by the Immigration officials?

Mr. O'HARA. Mr. Chairman, I was out on this sort of inspection. tour between 2 a.m. and 4:30 a.m. At that time, the people coming across the border are almost entirely those who are farmworkers. It is not until later in the morning that the town workers, as it were, commuting town workers are coming across the border.

At this hour, it is almost entirely farmworkers who are hoping to make contact with a crew leader or who have a regular foreman that they have an ongoing relationship with, who have to be transported some distance before they are at the fields at which they are going to work, and who want to be in the fields by dawn.

So with that qualification, I will describe to you the kind of credentials presented by them and the kind of people I saw coming across. They were men and women of all ages, really, from about 16 or 17 upward into the sixties. At the time I was observing their passage, almost all of them, I would say 90 percent, were presenting green cards, so-called green cards, as their credentials for passage.

The Immigration inspector would, if any of the green cards looked somewhat discolored or had anything odd about their appearance, the inspector would stop, take the green card, and try to determine if it was legitimate and genuine by a quick visual examination and an examination by touch with the fingertips.

He said that there was a considerable problem at that point in the border with forged credentials.

Senator MONDALE. Forged credentials were a serious problem? Mr. O'HARA. He said it was a serious problem at that particular point.

Of those who did not have green cards, there were several types of documents. First, a Mexican passport with a visa stamped in it was sometimes presented, with a picture of the holder of the passport. Senator MONDALE. Would that be a Mexican citizen?

Mr. O'HARA. Yes, who had a visa for admission into the United States and was showing that. They would accept that.

A number of them would have U.S. passports showing that they were U.S. citizens, and gaining their travel back and forth in that way. Senator MONDALE. Would that be evidence of U.S. citizenship? Mr. O'HARA. Yes. Others presented birth certificates or baptismal certificates.

Senator MONDALE. The birth certificates that I saw would usually be a certified copy or a photostat, presumably to evidence birth in the United States. But I find baptismal certificates a peculiar instrument to use to establish identity as a U.S. citizen.

Mr. O'HARA. Yes, Mr. Chairman. I inquired about that, and I noticed that some of these documents had thumb prints on them. I inquired about, "How do you determine the genuineness and validity of these things?" And I was told that, "Well, when such a document was first presented, they would sometimes take up the document, give the entrant a receipt for it, attempt to determine its validity, and then once the determination of its validity had been made, they would then have the applicant come in and give them a thumb print on the document itself-initially that, and that was sort of an indication that it was a valid document, and would be recognized as such from henceforward."

I might add, Mr. Chairman, some came through simply on their

say-so.

Senator MONDALE. While you were there?

Mr. O'HARA. While I was there. They would walk up to the immigration officer, indeed as we do, those of us from the States of Minnesota and Michigan, certainly, who are fairly close to our Canadian border. When we go across to Canada and return to the United States, we stop at the border. The Immigration officer says to us, "What is your citizenship?" We tell him. He might ask us where we were born. If the answers seem to him satisfactory, we are admitted.

The same practice is followed on the Mexican border with respect to these farmworkers. They ask what is their citizenship. They respond that it is the United States. They ask where they were born, they tell where, and quite often that is all that is asked.

At other times, the immigration officer may be a little suspicious of this particular person who has given these responses and he may ask further questions.

Then if he isn't satisfied, he may ask for some sort of identification and what-have-you. But for the most part, he simply says, “What is your citizenship?" The response is, "The United States." "Where were you born," and the response is "Brawley," or "Los Angeles," and they go on through.

I think we should greatly tighten up the border. The entry of illegals has been expanding at a fantastic rate in recent years since termination of the Public Law 78, the Bracero Program, and it is becoming quite easy because the amount of personnel and funds devoted to preventing illegal entry is not as great as it must be if we are going to really effectively prevent illegal entries.

Mr. Chairman, I have taken a lot of your time, and the caucus of House Democrats began 4 minutes ago.

Senator MONDALE. Fine. I wouldn't want to interrupt proceedings in the other House. It is screwed up enough the way it is. [Laughter.] Mr. O'HARA. Mr. Chairman, I want to hasten to assure you that if you are concerned about that, I have no plan in mind as I go to the caucus. I have nothing I want to propose. I just want to make sure nobody else proposes anything else I object to.

Senator MONDALE. Let me say how much we appreciate your appearance here, and your willingness to go to the border and make a firsthand appraisal of the circumstances as you see them. This was essentially the same thing I saw when I went to the border in Texas.

The other day when there was a hearing, I brought up the baptismal certificate issue, and afterward a Catholic priest came down to me and he said there was a very serious problem along the border, and that they tried to encourage the nonissuance of baptismal certificates when they don't accurately reflect the situation.

He said he knew of cases where people held baptismal certificates that make it appear they were U.S. citizens, when in fact they are not. Senator Murphy, Congressman O'Hara was supposed to be in caucus 5 minutes ago.

Mr. O'HARA. If the Senator has any questions, I will be happy to answer them.

Senator MURPHY. I have none.

Mr. O'HARA. It was a pleasure to talk with you.

Senator MONDALE. Thank you.

Our next witness is Peter Velasco, who is with the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee of Delano, Calif.

I understand you do not have a written statement, but that you would like to make an opening extemporaneous statement, and then have us ask questions.

Mr. Velasco, we are pleased to have you here this morning. You may proceed as you wish.

STATEMENT OF PETER VELASCO, UNION ORGANIZER, THE UNITED FARM WORKERS ORGANIZING COMMITTEE, DELANO, CALIF.

Mr. VELASCO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My name is Peter Velasco. I am a farmworker and a striker since September 8, 1965. I was appointed by the director of the United Farm Workers Organizing Committee in Coachella this year.

Our strike as of today is nearly 4 years, since September. There is a regulation about green card holders, that they cannot cross the border to break this strike, but the growers have used green carders to break our strike, and they were not told they are to work in the strike

areas.

For instance, they strike at the Giumarra Vineyards Corp. There were 950 farmworkers who walked out on strike, out of about a 1,000 work force, and they were replaced by green carders.

Senator MONDALE. How quickly were they replaced?

Mr. VALESCO. Green-carders were recruited to replace the strikers. because at the time the grape picking was in swing, and then again in June 1968 we struck in Coachella, and there the growers were notified to sit down and talk with our director and representatives of the United Farm Workers, but the growers refused to sit down with them. So a representation election was held, and 1,500 voted for union. representation, and about 37 voted against.

Senator MONDALE. Would you please repeat those numbers?
Mr. VELASCO. 1,500 voted for union representation.

Senator MONDALE. And how many voted against the union?
Mr. VELASCO. Thirty-seven voted against.

Senator MONDALE. Thirty-seven.

Mr. VELASCO. The people, when we figured it in the fields that people walk out, and thus the growers could not get no workers, and for that reason the growers went to court and-and Judge Pierson Hall had issued an injunction giving 21 days for the growers to recruit green carders.

The green carders broke our certified strike. Mexicali is only 100 miles away from the border, from Coachella, I should say. In the border, since I was there in Coachella, I had the experience of watching personally what transpired every morning. About 21 organizers in my group, by two's, and we went down there about 12 o'clock in the morning, one Sunday morning, and we observed that about 1 o'clock in the morning green card holders start to come in, and about 2 o'clock there are more coming in.

Right there in the pit located where people come across were buses for transporting workers, and along with those buses were station wagons owned by contractors. So about 4 o'clock the buses are loaded with green card holders, and they are transported from the pit into the different areas in Coachella, which the organizers, they follow a bus in different areas, and made a report in the morning, say, about 7:30, when we came home.

They were hauled back from the pit into the Coachella ranches, and returned in the afternoon, which gathering from the figure of-say, they get up at 1 o'clock in the morning and return about 4 o'clock in the afternoon. They practically spend 16 hours for a work of 8 hours a day with pay, and then there is the situation that makes it difficult to form a union under such circumstances or conditions.

Domestic workers are afraid to walk out, because they know that if they walk out, they are replaced by green cardholders.

Unless something can be done about contractors and growers illegally recruiting green carders, there will be escalation of nonviolent involvement of the farmworkers' union.

Also, there is the Immigration and Naturalization Service not fully enforcing the law to stop the green carders breaking our strike. For instance, in the case of Mr. Giumarra Vineyards Corp., where 950 out of 1,000 walked out and were replaced by green carders, and the Immigration Service refused to tell the union who recruits these illegal strikebreakers.

Also, the Filipinos have a peculiar problem. The Filipinos are skillful workers, and they are a No. 1 asset to the growers, and they do all forms of farmwork.

In the early 1930's, laws were passed and deprived them of getting married interracially with caucasians, and they can't own homes and own property, and these laws were supported by the growers so that the Filipinos live in community-live a community life in the camps, and by so doing, they are at the growers' disposal to be used to work for them with low wages.

Then there is the attitude of the growers like paternalistic attitude toward the Filipinos. They call the Filipinos "my boys," and "my boys are happy," they speak of them like they own them, you know.

Also, there is the attitude of the growers of pitting the races against races a sort of dividing the unity of the farmworkers in such a way that they cannot organize as one strong body.

Today, most Filipinos are still without homes and unmarried.

Senator MONDALE. I might add that when many of the present Filipino farmworkers came to the United States, we had an Asian exclusion law which established a ratio of 280 males to one female. There would be 280 male Filipino workers admitted to one Filipino woman. Secondly, the laws in California prohibited you from owning property. The miscegenation statute was amended to prohibit a marriage between a Filipino and a white woman, so that many of the Filipino workers are now in their late fifties and sixties. They have never owned property, and they have never been permitted to marry until just recently. Is that correct?

Mr. VELASCO. That is correct, sir.

Senator MONDALE. I don't know when those discriminatory laws were changed.

Senator KENNEDY. Of course, just developing that point, as Senator Mondale said, even beyond the point of the percentages that were able to come on into the United States, the McCarran-Walter Immigration Act, which referred to those who come from the Asian Pacific triangle, constituted some of the most discriminatory laws that ever existed on the U.S. statute books.

We were able to change that in 1965 so that the accident of birth would not be reflected in the entrance requirements into the United States, but I think what Senator Mondale has touched on here is a whole history of the U.S. laws which were on their very face, many of them, the most blatant kind of discrimination that we have ever had. I think all of us are aware of the hidden kinds of discrimination which existed in our society, but here was something that was just written right into the statutes, and existed from the late 1920's, when the early immigration law passed, right up to only a few years ago. So I think that it is appropriate for us to keep this in mind when we are talking about this background which you relate to the committee today.