U.S. Agriculture Doesn't Function Without Immigrant Labor
Around 42% of all farm laborers in the U.S. are undocumented, so if you’ve eaten today, thank an immigrant
In the U.S., there’s hardly a food you could eat that is untouched by immigrant labor.
Whether growing, harvesting, processing, or cooking it in restaurants, we’d be going hungry without a robust immigrant workforce.
Around 42% of all farm laborers in the U.S. are undocumented.
And right now, at the direction of bigoted goons like Stephen Miller and Kristi Noem, ICE agents are raiding, assaulting, and detaining taxpaying men and women doing back breaking work in fields, orchards, processing plants, and restaurant kitchens.
Not only is it disgusting – it’s also an economic disaster.
Workers across the country have been terrified to show up not only for work, but to their regular court-ordered appointments with immigration officials and naturalization hearings as they move through the process toward legal status. At Miller and Noem’s direction, ICE is using their court hearings as a honey-pot to trap and arrest them.
And it leads to broken families, indefinite detentions, and sometimes, deportations to countries they have no association with.
Economically, it means the possible loss of billions of dollars worth of produce and other foods – not to mention labor shortages, higher prices, shrunken local economies, and stagnated communities that had been made vibrant again by waves of new immigration.
And if this pattern keeps up, we may see farmers watch crops rot in the field, even higher prices for consumers, more importing of foreign-grown foods at tariff inflated prices, or empty shelves at the grocery store.
California alone, a heavy target for ICE, produces over 75% of our supply of fruits and nuts and over 30% of all our vegetables.
President Trump promised to work with farmers and put energy and investment into the agriculture sector. What we’ve gotten is changed minds, chaotic back-and-forth, and promises that can’t be trusted.
The facts are clear: the U.S. can’t operate without immigrant labor. Farmers will take huge losses. Consumer costs will hike again and again.
If President Trump wants to put this country back on the path to prosperity, here’s how to do it: harvest fields on time, increase exports, make sure it’s safe for the workforce to show up everyday, and create a path to legal status that is both quick and compassionate.
SOUND OFF
Do you support or oppose the Trump Administration’s increasingly militant rhetoric toward Greenland, Cuba and other countries? Tell us about it. Email: podcast@onecountryproject.com and your feedback could be on an upcoming episode of The Hot Dish.
Really strong piece on the agricultural dependancy. The 42% figure realy underscores how deeply integrated these workers are into our food system. What often gets missed is the ripple effect when processing plants shut down even temporarily, entire supply chains seize up and smaller operations can't absorb those kinds of disruptions the way big agribusiness can.
Yep - and farmers voting for Trump. ICE needs to be in Texas & Florida where there are 10x more illegals