Colbert Strays Onto Capitol Hill for Immigration Hearing

One of Stephen Colbert's split personalities will testify Friday on Capitol Hill, transforming the hearing chamber for an obscure congressional committee into a showroom of gawking onlookers.

Colbert's appearance has created a buzz in Washington. United Farm Workers announced Wednesday that its president would testify alongside Colbert in Washington for a hearing on "Protecting America's Harvest." Despite initial reports that Colbert would assume the role of his tongue-in-cheek conservative pundit alter-ego, one source tells Fox Business Network that his prepared testimony is "serious."

Watch the testimony starting at 9:30 a.m. ET on FoxNews.com.

A committee aide told FoxNews.com the House Judiciary subcommittee hearing will be about migrant farm workers and probably touch on the so-called AgJOBS bill, a proposal that would give illegal immigrant farm workers a pathway to legal status.

The appearance already has triggered some grumbling from the Republican side. Rep. Jason Chaffetz -- who sits on the Subcommittee on Immigration, Citizenship, Refugees, Border Security and International Law -- called the hearing a "joke."

"We have never, ever had a substantive discussion on any immigration issue ... and they're calling Colbert as their first guy?" the Utah Republican told Fox News. "The meeting room will be packed. Everybody will want to get their picture taken with him and an autograph and what no, but we're not here to make Comedy Central look good. We do that all by ourselves."

The idea for a Colbert appearance on the Hill apparently sprouted in August, after Colbert met subcommittee Chairwoman Zoe Lofgren, D-Calif., on a New York corn farm.

Both Colbert and Lofgren had taken up UFW President Arturo Rodriguez on a challenge to experience life as a field worker - Colbert agreed to the gig when Rodriguez appeared as a guest on his show in July. At the farm, Colbert and Lofgren taped a segment together for "The Colbert Report" and somewhere along the line arranged for Colbert to come to Washington.

"They must have hit it off," the committee aide said.

Rodriguez's challenge was part of his labor group's "Take Our Jobs" campaign. In a bid to prove that field workers do the jobs Americans don't want, the UFW has been publicizing the feedback from its invitation to U.S. citizens and legal residents to come work in the fields -- according to the UFW, just seven have done so.

Colbert aired the interview with Lofgren on Wednesday and planned to show footage from his farm work Thursday ahead of the hearing.

In the interview, Lofgren tried to defend the UFW program but Colbert's host personality -- who labeled her a "notorious Mexican hugger" -- took over.

"This all seems fairly archaic to me. We don't get our food from farms anymore - we get them from the grocery store," Colbert reasoned, comparing the sun-drenched and vegetable-filled fields to "fat camp."

Colbert spent the rest of the interview trying to convince Lofgren to "make an anchor baby" with him, a request she repeatedly declined.