With their local product already undercut by cheaper crab from Asia and Latin America, processors say that lifting wages to levels that might attract Americans would increase production costs beyond their ability to compete in the marketplace.
"Nobody's going to be able to get a can of Maryland crab anymore," said Jack Brooks, owner of the J.M. Clayton Co. in Cambridge.
It was Brooks' great-grandfather, Capt. John Morgan Clayton, who opened the first seafood processing plant on the Eastern Shore when he built an oyster shucking house on Hoopers Island in 1890. Within a few years, according to a company history, he turned his attention to the blue crab, founding the industry that has continued to the present day. While Clayton moved his business to Cambridge in 1921, nine of Dorchester County's 14 seafood processors remain on Hoopers Island. Many have been controlled by the same families for generations.
For decades, the crab houses hired local pickers, often the wives of watermen, who helped keep the local economy humming. But as younger islanders sought better work - in Cambridge, in Baltimore or beyond - the labor pool dwindled.
Newcomb at A.E. Phillips was the first to bring in Mexican workers, in 1991. His example took hold; from 2003 to 2007, Maryland seafood processors employed an average of 376 foreign workers each year.
Douglas W. Lipton, a resource economist at the University of Maryland, says they have helped sustain the industry. In a recent study, he estimated that each foreign worker lost would cost the state economy 2.54 American jobs. He concluded that the loss of all of the foreign workers would put 955 Americans out of work.
F. Levi Ruark, president of the National Bank of Cambridge, says such a blow would be felt broadly - from the financial institutions that lend money to the crab houses to the businesses where the workers shop.
"It's a great impact on a lot of different people," Ruark said. "I could see a great downturn in our economy."
Bryan Hall, Robin's brother, says the restaurants and stores they supply are looking for answers.
"I've had several customers call me and say, 'Look, I know this cap's been met. Are you going to have crabmeat this summer or should I start looking for crabmeat from overseas?' So already, we're starting to feel it," he said. "They're starting to look."
The Rev. Joseph Kelly, pastor at United Methodist churches in Fishing Creek and neighboring Hoopersville, says the uncertainty is putting a strain on local families.
