Recent raids carried out by agents of American immigration and the enforcement of customs in the agricultural area of California cause a widespread exodus of employees, which threatens the harvest of billions of dollars of products.
Farmers say that the raids earlier this month, as part of the migration content of President Donald Trump, have deterred employees and fields in Ventura County and are critically understaffed.
Ventura County produces billions of dollars of fruit and fruit every year, many of them chosen by immigrants in the US illegally. Lisa Tate, a farmer in the sixth generation in the area, has observed the immediate and hair -raising effect of the ice operations.
“In the area I would say that 70 percent of employees have disappeared,” she said.
“If 70 percent of your staff do not pop up, 70 percent of your crop will not be picked and it cannot get bad in one day. Most Americans don’t want to do this work. Most farmers here hardly even break. I fear that this has created a tip where many will step.”
The agricultural country north of Los Angeles, which extends from Ventura County to the central valley of the State, two farmers, two field counselors and four immigrant land builders, Reuters told this month that the ice attacks led to the majority of employees stopping appearing.
That means that crops are not picked and fruit and vegetables rot during peak harvesting time, they said.
A Mexican farm Supervisor, who asked for not to be called, supervised a field that was prepared for planting strawberries last week. He would usually have 300 employees, he said. On this day he only had 80.
Another supervisor on another farm said he usually has 80 employees in a field, but today only 17.
Badly
Most economists and politicians acknowledge that many of the American agricultural employees are illegal in the country, but say that a strong reduction in their number can have devastating effects on the food supply chain and farm areas economies.
Douglas Holtz-Akin, a Republican and former director of the Congressional Budget Office, said that an estimated 80 percent of the US farm workers were born abroad, with almost half in the country illegal. Losing them will cause price increases for consumers, he said.
“This is bad for supply chains, bad for the agricultural industry,” said Holtz-Akin.
More than a third of our vegetables and more than three -quarters of the fruit and nuts of the country are grown in California according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. The farms and ranches of the State generated almost $ 60 billion in the sale of agricultural construction in 2023.
Reuters spoke against the four immigrant workers, two are illegal in the country. These two spoke about the condition of anonymity, for fear arrested by ice.
One, 54 years old, has worked in American agricultural areas for 30 years and has a woman and children in the country. He said that most of his colleagues stopped showing up for work.
“When they show up to work, they don’t know if they’ll ever see their families anymore,” he said.
The other employee in the country said illegally: “In short, we wake up in the morning. We are worried about the sun, the heat and now a much bigger problem – many do not go home. I am not trying to get into trouble on the street. Now who is being arrested for whatever reason.”
Certainly, some farm workers’ community groups said that many employees still returned to the field, despite the raids, out of economic necessity.
The days after a raid can see a reduced presence in the field, but the employees soon return because they have no other sources of income, five groups told Reuters.
Employees also take other steps to reduce their exposure to immigration agents, such as carpooling with people with legal status to work or send American civilian children to the supermarket, the groups said.
Trump admitted this month in a position about his social account of the truth that Ice raids on agricultural workers – And also hotel staff – “very good, old employees away” from those sectors, “with those jobs that were almost impossible to replace.”
Trump later told reporters: “Our farmers are seriously injured. They have very good employees.”
He added: “They are not burgers, but they have turned out to be great.”
He promised to issue an order to tackle the impact, but No policy change is still adopted.
Trump has always been noticed for farmers, said spokeswoman Anna Kelly of the White House in response to a request for commentary on the impact of the ice attacks on farms.
“He will continue to strengthen our agricultural industry and stimulate exports, keeping his promise to enforce our immigration laws,” she said.
Bernard Yaros, head of the American economist at Oxford Economics, a non-party worldwide worldwide economy, said in a report that it was published on 26 June that indigenous employees tend not to fill the emptiness behind by immigrants who have left.
“Non-authorized immigrants usually work in different professions than those born native,” he said.
Ice operations in the agricultural land of California were even afraid of those who are authorized, said Greg Tesch, who runs a farm in Central California.
“Nobody feels safe when they hear the word ice cream, even the documented people. We know that the neighborhood is full of a combination of people with and without documents,” Tesch said.
“If things are ripe, like our neighbors have pepper here, if) they don’t harvest them within two or three days, the crop is burned or too mature,” Tesch said. “We need the work.”
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