The country has maintained a disingenuous relationship with the undocumented workers who keep America’s agriculture, construction and hotel industries thriving.
For one thing, we simply couldn’t function without them. On the other hand, xenophobic politicians achieve their goals by stoking fear and distrust of workers at the bottom of the economic ladder.
Voters can be angry about all kinds of things, but they often find it easier to blame outsiders for disasters that have nothing to do with them, such as inflation.
But we can’t kid ourselves: President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to deport as many undocumented immigrants as possible could have devastating consequences for the nation’s economy, prices, and the people who come to this country to pick the fruits and vegetables and build our country.
Some economists estimate that half of California’s 900,000 farm workers are undocumented and have been particularly hard hit.
Joe Del Bosque, 75, has been growing cantaloupes, almonds and asparagus on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley for decades. During the picking season, his staff may swell to 200, none of whom are native-born white. Some of his workers have lived in the United States for years under “temporary protected status,” some have green cards and others can provide documentation that meets minimum federal requirements.
“American citizens don’t want these farm jobs,” Del Bosque told me Wednesday. “And I don’t blame them. It’s hard work in extreme conditions and a lot of people aren’t willing to accept any pay.
Additionally, he said, the work is seasonal. Farm workers move from crop to crop depending on the time of year.
“The people who do this work go from farm to farm to farm to farm,” Del Bosque said. “Who can make a living doing three months’ work in this country? It’s not easy.
The prospect of massive immigration raids and deportations sends shivers down the spines of farmworkers and their bosses, many of whom remember how just a decade ago job shortages left produce rotting in fields.
“We need to come together and agree that we need some form of immigration reform, especially for essential workers,” Del Bosque said. “They feed the country. There’s nothing more important than that.
He recalled that in the mid-1980s, when he was managing cantaloupe fields, federal pilots would fly small planes over the state’s farmland looking for large numbers of workers. Pilots would send information about the workers to the ground, and vans full of immigration officials would storm the farms and, as Del Bosque put it, “catch as many as they could.”
One attack he witnessed ended in tragedy. Two farm workers fleeing the FBI jumped into an aqueduct at the edge of a field and tried to swim away.
“One person didn’t make it,” Del Bosque said. “He drowned instantly. They pulled him out and he died. I remember they had a hearing in Merced and a couple of us came to testify about what happened. But I don’t think that produce any results.
Human Rights Watch reports that from 1974 to 1986, 15 immigrant farm workers are known to have drowned in Central Valley canals during immigration raids. Immigrant rights groups accuse Border Patrol agents of deliberately pushing workers toward irrigation canals and using them as barriers to prevent escapes.
Human Rights Watch said the border patrol vehicle did not carry life-saving equipment, which “showed callousness, if not criminal negligence.” In 1984, Border Patrol officials belatedly announced that agents would be required to carry life-saving equipment when working near rivers and canals.
There is no question that this country’s immigration system is broken. It is illegal to hire undocumented workers, but employers do it anyway because they cannot operate without this human capital. With rare exceptions, the government turns a blind eye. In fact, my colleague Don Lee recently wrote that the likelihood of an employer facing an inspection by immigration authorities is “even less likely than the likelihood of a taxpayer being audited by the IRS.”
Lee’s story focuses on E-Verify, a computer-based program that allows employers to check a potential employee’s legal status easily, almost instantly and for free.
The problem, Lee reported, is that most employers won’t use it. they simply Don’t want to know Workers are staying illegally; they are in desperate need of labor.
The summer after I graduated high school, my sister found a job for me as a waitress at a restaurant on Ventura Boulevard in Woodland Hills. The restaurant, called Pages, is an upscale restaurant, with a long counter in the front, a pie case and booths along the picture window.
Every now and then we would hear a commotion in the kitchen as the Spanish-speaking men working in the kitchen warned each other: “la migra” — the immigration authorities — are on their way. This was long before the advent of cell phones. I don’t know who tipped them off.
From inside the restaurant, men would climb onto the roof, wait for the “all clear” and then return immediately to clear tables, wash dishes and cook. Those arrested and deported quickly returned to work after sneaking across the border, which was far more porous before President Reagan’s 1986 amnesty and stricter border enforcement. Bosses who encourage and condone such attempts to evade federal investigation typically face no repercussions.
It’s a ritual, a dance that has almost no meaning – except that it’s destructive and horrific.
This will continue unless Congress corrects our incredible hypocrisy regarding undocumented immigrants by reforming our immigration system. It may be in Trump’s best interest to continue demonizing them, but it’s definitely not in our interest.
blue sky: @rabcarian.bsky.social. theme: @rabcarian
