Trump is such an asshole.
Alexandra, a 55-year-old undocumented immigrant, was on her way to work at a watermelon farm in the border city of Edinburg, Texas, recently when her oldest son stopped her before she stepped out of her aging trailer.
“Please don’t go. You are going to get deported,” he told Alexandra, who asked that her last name not be used because she did not want to attract attention from federal immigration agents. Her son then showed her graphic videos of federal agents chasing and handcuffing migrants seemingly all over the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. “That could be you,” he said.
President Trump’s conflicting orders to exempt, then target, then again exempt farm workers from his aggressive immigration sweeps of work sites have caused havoc in agricultural industries across the country, where about 42 percent of farm workers are undocumented, according to the Agriculture Department.
But perhaps nowhere is fear among farm workers more palpable than on the farms and ranches along the southwestern U.S.-Mexico border, where for centuries workers have considered the frontier as being more porous than prohibitive.
It is difficult to estimate how many workers have stopped going to work. But Elizabeth Rodriguez, an activist with the National Farm Worker Ministry, says she is seeing fewer and fewer workers at the farms she frequents as the watermelon season is about to end.
“The majority of workers here are longtime residents who for some reason or another don’t have legal status,” Ms. Rodriguez said. “And now, they are terrified to go to work. The fields are nearly empty.”
Undocumented workers have long been the lifeline of farms along the border region. In the most recent survey published by the National Center for Farmworker Health, about 80 percent of surveyed workers in Hidalgo County said they were undocumented. And the county, the largest in the Valley, as the region is known, has more than 2,400 farms.
Legal farm workers with H-2A visas, which allow mostly Mexican nationals to work and live while they labor on farms, make up only a small percentage of the work force, according to the same study.
“Clearly these farmers need these workers,” Ms. Rodriguez said. “How are Americans going to get the food they eat?”
Alexandra, a 55-year-old undocumented immigrant, was on her way to work at a watermelon farm in the border city of Edinburg, Texas, recently when her oldest son stopped her before she stepped out of her aging trailer.
“Please don’t go. You are going to get deported,” he told Alexandra, who asked that her last name not be used because she did not want to attract attention from federal immigration agents. Her son then showed her graphic videos of federal agents chasing and handcuffing migrants seemingly all over the Rio Grande Valley of Texas. “That could be you,” he said.
President Trump’s conflicting orders to exempt, then target, then again exempt farm workers from his aggressive immigration sweeps of work sites have caused havoc in agricultural industries across the country, where about 42 percent of farm workers are undocumented, according to the Agriculture Department.
But perhaps nowhere is fear among farm workers more palpable than on the farms and ranches along the southwestern U.S.-Mexico border, where for centuries workers have considered the frontier as being more porous than prohibitive.
It is difficult to estimate how many workers have stopped going to work. But Elizabeth Rodriguez, an activist with the National Farm Worker Ministry, says she is seeing fewer and fewer workers at the farms she frequents as the watermelon season is about to end.
“The majority of workers here are longtime residents who for some reason or another don’t have legal status,” Ms. Rodriguez said. “And now, they are terrified to go to work. The fields are nearly empty.”
Undocumented workers have long been the lifeline of farms along the border region. In the most recent survey published by the National Center for Farmworker Health, about 80 percent of surveyed workers in Hidalgo County said they were undocumented. And the county, the largest in the Valley, as the region is known, has more than 2,400 farms.
Legal farm workers with H-2A visas, which allow mostly Mexican nationals to work and live while they labor on farms, make up only a small percentage of the work force, according to the same study.
“Clearly these farmers need these workers,” Ms. Rodriguez said. “How are Americans going to get the food they eat?”
