by Ryan Hanrahan, University of Illinois’ FarmDoc project
Champagne, IL — The Washington Post’s Carol D. Leonnig, Natalie Allison, Marianne LeVine and Lauren Kaori Gurley reported that “the Department of Homeland Security on Monday told staff that it was reversing guidance issued last week that agents were not to conduct immigration raids at farms, hotels and restaurants — a decision that stood at odds with President Donald Trump’s calls for mass deportations of anyone without legal status.”
“Officials from Immigration and Customs Enforcement, including its Homeland Security Investigations division, told agency leaders in a call Monday that agents must continue conducting immigration raids at agricultural businesses, hotels and restaurants, according to two people familiar with the call,” Leonnig, Allison, LeVine and Gurley reported. “The new instructions were shared in an 11 a.m. call to representatives from 30 field offices across the country.”
“ICE and HSI field office supervisors began learning about a likely reversal of the exemption policy Sunday after hearing from DHS leadership that the White House did not support it, according to one person with knowledge of the reversal,” Leonnig, Allison, LeVine and Gurley reported. “…’There will be no safe spaces for industries who harbor violent criminals or purposely try to undermine ICE’s efforts,’ Tricia McLaughlin, an assistant secretary for DHS, said Monday. ‘Worksite enforcement remains a cornerstone of our efforts to safeguard public safety, national security and economic stability.'”
Reuters’ Ted Hesson and Leah Douglas reported that “it was not clear why last week’s directive was reversed. Some ICE officials left the call confused, and it appeared they would still need to tread carefully with raids on the previously exempted businesses, the former officials said.”
Uncertainty about ICE Policies Hits California
The Los Angeles Times’ Jessica Garrison and Melissa Gomez reported that “as the crucial summer harvest season gets underway in California’s vast agricultural regions, farmers and their workers say they feel whiplashed by a series of contradictory signals about how the Trump administration’s crackdown on illegal immigration might affect them.”
“That’s why, when federal immigration agents rolled into the berry fields of Oxnard last week and detained 40 farmworkers, growers up and down the state grew worried along with their workers,” Garrison and Gomez reported. “Farm laborers, many of whom have lived and worked in their communities for decades, were terrified of being rounded up and deported, separated from their families and livelihoods. Farmers worried that their workforce would vanish — either locked up in detention centers or forced into the shadows for fear of arrest — just as their labor was needed most.”
“Everyone wanted to know whether the raids in Oxnard were the beginning of a broader statewide crackdown that would radically disrupt the harvest season — which is also the period when most farmworkers earn the most money — or just a one-off enforcement action,” Garrison and Gomez reported. “In the ensuing days, the answers have become no clearer, according to farmers, worker advocates and elected officials.”
“‘We, as the California agricultural community, are trying to figure out what’s going on,’ said Ryan Jacobsen, chief executive of the Fresno County Farm Bureau and a farmer of almonds and grapes,” according to Garrison and Gomez’s reporting. “He added that ‘time is of the essence,’ because farms and orchards are ‘coming right into our busiest time.'”
Texas Farmers Say Workers Not Showing Up
The Hill’s Jorge Vela and Addy Bink reported that “farmers in Texas’s Rio Grande Valley say they are feeling the pinch of workers failing to show up due to the ongoing U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.”
“Farmer Nick Billman of Donna told Nexstar’s KVEO that the raids are keeping employees from coming to work, leaving farmers without any help. He said things started getting worse just weeks ago,” Vela and Bink reported. “‘I would say within the last three weeks, it started to slow, but this last week has been huge,’ Billman said. ‘That is when it has been zero people wanting to come out and be exposed, to be able to be picked up, whether they are legal or illegal.'”
“Billman was left alone, cleaning up debris from a storm that moved through on Thursday. While storm debris cleanup is easy, Billman told KVEO that he believes the country’s food supply could be impacted if the pressure on farms continues,” Vela and Bink reported. “‘It could be to the point where we lose our planting and having the ground ready, and even then, why plant if we cannot even harvest?’ the farmer said. ‘My family and I can harvest by hand ourselves, but the amount we need in order to cover that cost of growing, we have to have much broader personnel than just family hands-on.'”
