Farm workers and their supporters are marching this week up the Salinas Valley as well as in the Central Valley and Ventura County because there is an alternative to the recent intimidation of Latino immigrants by immigration authorities.

That intimidation is discriminatory, unjust and just plain wrong. The authorities are targeting and expelling from the country the poorest, most vulnerable workers whose only sin is that they are performing jobs no one else will do, whether they are in the agricultural industry or other sectors.

The injustice and suffering to which these people have been subjected underscore the urgent need for humane and rational immigration reform.

We are marching to build support for the AgJobs bill* now before Congress. AgJobs would let undocumented farm workers earn the legal right to permanently stay in this country by continuing to work in agriculture. It is earned legalization, not an amnesty plan.

Both the growers and the United Farm Workers negotiated it over a three-year period. The bill has 63 co-sponsors in the U.S. Senate, many of them Republicans.

It is the only measure strongly supported by employer, labor, civil rights and religious organizations.

Senator John Kerry has promised to sponsor comprehensive immigration reform if he is elected President. He has also pledged to sign into law the AgJobs bill.

AgJobs would make good on the promise this nation offers those who labor in American agriculture.

To those who say we shouldn't consider or cooperate with hard-working, tax-paying undocumented immigrants, that they are criminals and trespassers, we say: Why do you continue to buy most fresh fruits and vegetables? They come to your tables through the skill and toil of undocumented farm workers.

American consumers have the greatest abundance of the best quality fruits and vegetables in the world at relatively cheap prices. That plenty comes from the hands of undocumented immigrants.

The question is not whether undocumented immigrants will remain in the country. America's economy?and American agriculture?cannot survive without them.

The question is whether these workers will continue living in fear and be denied a voice in the country that relies so heavily on their contributions and sacrifice.

We see their faces and suffering every day. They are our co-workers and neighbors. They are our friends and family. They are us.

In his 1963 speech proposing the historic Civil Rights Act banning segregation, President Kennedy said:

"We preach freedom around the world, and we mean it. And we cherish our freedom here at home. But are we to say to the world?and much more importantly to each other?that this is the land of the free, except for the [African Americans]; that we have no second-class citizens, except [African Americans]; that we have no class or caste system...except with respect to [African Americans]."

The same questions can be posed today about people who still endure abuse and discrimination:

As America fights terrorism and intolerance, can we say to the world?and to ourselves?that this is the land of freedom, except for undocumented immigrants?

Do we have no second-class citizens, except for the immigrants?

Do we have no class or caste system, except when it comes to immigrants?

The answers to those questions will truly decide whether this nation remains faithful to its heritage of democracy and equality.

We should pass the AgJobs bill now.

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* S. 1645 and H.R. 3142, by U.S. Sens. Larry E. Craig (R-Idaho) and Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), and U.S. Reps. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) and Howard Berman (D-Calif.)