And who will work in the fields? Children?Folks who have just lost #FoodAssistance and #Medicare?#Protestors who piss off Trump?
#Trump’s Immigration #Crackdown Hits #CaliforniaFarms
#Farmworkers hid in fields on Tuesday as word spread that ICE agents were conducting raids in California’s breadbasket, an activist said.
By Bernard Mokam and Pooja Salhotra
June 11, 2025, 9:08 p.m. ET
Excerpt: " 'The #Trump administration is ramping up its immigration crackdown, with a focus on workplaces with undocumented #laborers, such as #farms, #restaurants and #construction sites. Estimates show more than eight million undocumented #immigrants work in the United States.
"Last Friday, federal immigration agents swept through the garment district of Los Angeles, setting off protests that have rattled sections of downtown L.A. and have spread to a number of cities across the country.
"For #farmworkers — about 42 percent of whom are undocumented, according to the Agriculture Department — the escalation in arrests has created widespread fear.
" 'Children are terrified,' Ms. Romero said. 'They don’t want to go to school because they don’t know if their parents will be home when they come back.'
"Local leaders have rebuked the escalation, which could bring hardship to one of California’s agricultural corridors. The #CentralValley — which grows #almonds, #grapes, #walnuts and #cherries, among other crops — produces a quarter of the nation’s food, worth an estimated $17 billion a year, according to federal data.
" 'These actions are completely unjustified and harmful,' said Mayor Luis McArthur of Oxnard. 'They create chaos in our city without contributing much to public safety. Furthermore these actions undermine the very principles of #DueProcess.'
"The raids this week represent the first organized immigration enforcement from the new Trump administration to hit California’s agricultural region, which covers about 40 percent of the state, Ms. Romero said. A handful of federal operations have been conducted in other rural communities in recent weeks. Last month, federal agents pulled over a bus in #AlbionN., and detained 14 immigrants who worked at a nearby farm. In April, three children and their mother were detained at an upstate New York dairy.
"Rural migrants are particularly vulnerable to immigration enforcement because they stand out in towns that are often racially homogenous, said Will Lambek of Migrant Justice, an advocacy organization for farmworkers in #Vermont, where eight dairy workers were detained in April.
"In California, Ms. Davalos said the agents could have made more arrests had the community been less prepared. Once a volunteer spotted officers in the area, an alert was sent through a network of support.
"Federal agents were denied entry to at least nine farms in the Central Coast, Ms. Davalos said. Some growers parked their vehicles in front of their gates. Employees also obscured their cars.
'We demonstrated the power of brave, nonviolent #resistance to #ICE’s tactics of #terror,' Ms. Davalos said, lamenting what she described as politically driven attempts to reach a deportation quota. 'At the end of the day, they’re seizing our family, friends, neighbors and co-workers.'
"If federal immigration enforcement activities continue, #FoodProduction will become increasingly difficult, and food prices could rise, warned Bryan Little, senior director of policy advocacy at the California Farm Bureau."
Read more:
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/06/11/us/trump-ice-raids-california-farms.html
Archived version:
https://archive.ph/NFWuO
