The Santaquin cherry farmer and apple seller fears that if Congress doesn't pass immigration reform soon - meaning this year - he and many other small businesses would have to sell the farm.

This week, Rowley along with several Utahns and a cadre of other farmers from across the country came to Capitol Hill to lobby for comprehensive immigration reform. The farmers need legal workers to pick fruit and vegetables, pack them up and ship them to local grocery stories.

"There needs to be something that we can tap into to bring legal work up here," Rowley says. "We struggle getting anyone to come and apply for jobs."

The White House and congressional leaders are attempting to come up with compromise legislation to deal with immigration reform this week, but it's unclear how close they are to figuring out a way to handle the estimated 12 million undocumented workers in the country.

An estimated 90,000 undocumented immigrants live in Utah. But federal and state government officials don't keep track of farmworker demographics. A Utah farmworker advocate estimates up to 95 percent of the state's farmworkers are undocumented immigrants.

Some reform proposals include the idea of such workers paying fines and returning to their home countries before being allowed to apply for citizenship, while others include some path to citizenship.

Rowley, whose family runs Cherry Hill Farms in Santaquin, is pushing the so-called Ag-Jobs bill that would allow "experienced, trusted workers" to temporarily remain in the United States and earn legal status, and the bill would also overhaul the legal "guest worker" program.

"What we want is a legal workforce," Rowley says. "That's what every farmer in this country wants. Someone we can count on to come in" and help with the harvest.

Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who met with Rowley on Tuesday, says he's right.

"We do need a guest worker program that comports with the law," Hatch said.

Getting there is another question.

Democrats in control of Congress differ from their Republican counterparts on how to proceed. Republicans also disagree with President Bush's plan for a guest worker program.

Bush said during a roundtable discussion with business owners on Wednesday that the immigration debate is a "very emotional issue" but one that must be tackled.

"I firmly believe that the bill needs to be comprehensive," Bush said. "You can't have one aspect of immigration reform passed and not other aspects, otherwise we'll be back to where we were in the past, and that is reform efforts have failed because it hadn't been comprehensive enough."

Hatch says he feels for farmers and other businesses that need a seasonal workforce but, "I don't think we're close to having a bill."

That's where farmers like Rowley come in. He and some 150 other farmers flooded the Hill urging members to pass comprehensive reform, especially the specifics of the Ag-Jobs bill. They are part of the Agriculture Coalition for Immigration Reform.

"These business leaders came to D.C. because they can't wait any longer for Congress to act on provisions for agriculture," says Craig Regelbrugge, co-chairman of the coalition and a lobbyist for the American Nursery and Landscape Association. "The fact they are here demonstrates how dire the ag labor situation really is."

For Rowley, whose workforce two years ago was 30 percent less than he needed, the urgency is obvious.

"We can't wait till next year," he says.

tburr@sltrib.com

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* JENNIFER W. SANCHEZ contributed to this article