Stephen Colbert Wants To Protect America’s Harvest With Immigration Reform

No joke! Stephen Colbert is keeping his promise to Arturo S. Rodriguez, president of the United Farm Workers (UFW). When Rodriguez was a guest on The Colbert Report this summer, he spoke about the UFW’s tongue-in-cheek (or not) campaign called “Take Our Jobs,“intended to prove the point that undocumented immigrants are working where U.S. citizens don’t want to. The “Take Our Jobs” campaign challenges Americans to work in the fields for a day–and on this week’s Colbert Report, you can watch Colbert take Rodriguez up on his offer. On Wednesday’s episode, Colbert interviews Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA), Chairwoman of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Citizenship, Refugees, Immigration, and Border Security, on a farm. Tonight, you can watch him actually toil in the fields:

Less than 20 people have taken the UFW up on their offer.

The campaign is a building block in the UFW’s struggle to get the AgJOBS bill passed, a parcel of immigration reforms that would grant undocumented farm workers currently in the United states a path towards legal status by continuing to work in agriculture. On Friday, Colbert will be testifying in Congress along with Rodriguez at a hearing on un-facetiously titled “Protecting America’s Harvest.” (Congress can be so melodramatic!)

AboutSarah Kate Kramer

Sarah Kate Kramer first got hooked on collecting stories as a StoryCorps facilitator, then traveled the world with a microphone for a few years before settling down in her hometown of New York City. From 2010-2012 she was the editor of Feet in 2 Worlds and a freelance reporter for WNYC Radio, where she created “Niche Market,” a weekly segment that profiled specialty stores in New York. Sarah is now a producer at Radio Diaries, a non-profit that produces documentaries for NPR and other public radio outlets.