This country has always had a hypocritical relationship with the undocumented workers who keep America’s agricultural, construction and hospitality industries humming.
On one hand, we simply cannot function without them. On the other, xenophobic politicians whip up fear and mistrust of workers on the lowest economic rungs when it serves their purposes.
And voters, who may be angry about all sorts of things, often find it easier to blame outsiders for woes they have nothing to do with, such as inflation.
But we can’t delude ourselves: President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to deport as many undocumented immigrants as possible threatens devastating consequences for the country’s economy, for prices and for the people who come to this country to pick our fruits and vegetables, build our homes and wash our dishes.
California, where some economists estimate that half of our 900,000 farmworkers are undocumented, would be especially hard hit.
Joe Del Bosque, 75, has grown cantaloupes, almonds and asparagus on the San Joaquin Valley’s west side for decades. During the picking season, his employment rolls can swell to as many as 200 workers, none of whom is native-born and white. Some of his workers have lived in the United States with “temporary protected status” for years, some have green cards and the rest have been able to provide documents that satisfy minimal federal requirements.
“A lot of these jobs in agriculture are not wanted by American citizens,” Del Bosque told me Wednesday. “And I don’t blame them. It’s hard work in extreme conditions out there that a lot of people don’t want to do at any wage.”
Also, he said, the work is seasonal. Farmworkers roam from crop to crop based on the time of year.
“The people that do it go from one farm to another to another,” Del Bosque said. “Who can make a living in this country working a three-month job? It’s not easy.”
The prospect of widespread immigration raids and deportations has sent chills down the spines of farmworkers and their bosses, many of whom remember when employment shortages left produce rotting in the fields as recently as 10 years ago.
“We need to get together and agree we need some form of immigration reform, especially for essential workers,” said Del Bosque. “They provide food for the country. Can’t get more essential than that.”
In the mid-1980s, when he managed cantaloupe fields, federal government pilots would fly small planes over the state’s cropland looking for large crews of workers, he recalled. The pilots would radio information about the workers to the ground, where vans full of immigration officers would storm farms to, as Del Bosque put it, “capture as many as they could.”
One raid he witnessed ended in tragedy. Two of the farmworkers fleeing the feds jumped into an aqueduct at the edge of the field and tried to swim away.
“One didn’t make it,” Del Bosque said.