By Tim Reed, Pilar Olivarez and Leah Douglas
Oxnard, California (Reuters) -Lisa Tate is a sixth -generation farmer in Ventura County, California, an area that produces billions of dollars of fruits and vegetables every year, much of it is manually selected by immigrants to the United States illegally.
Tate knows the farms around her. And she says she can see with her own eyes how the raids made by US immigration agents and the application of customs in the field of the field earlier this month, part of President Donald Trump’s migration repression, was scared of workers.
“I would say in the fields that 70% of the workers are gone,” she said in an interview. “If 70% of your workforce does not appear, 70% of your harvest is not chosen and can go wrong in one day. Most Americans do not want to do this job. Most farmers here hardly break.
In the vast agricultural lands north of Los Angeles, extending from Venture County in the central state valley, two farmers, two field supervisors and four immigrant farmers told Reuters this month that ice rains had made the majority of workers stop.
This means that crops are not chosen, but fruits and vegetables rot in peak harvesting time, they said.
A Mexican Farm leader who wanted not to be baptized was watching the field that was preparing to plant strawberries last week. He will usually have 300 workers, he said. On this day he had only 80. Another leader on another farm said there were usually 80 workers in the field, but today only 17.
Bad for the business
Most economists and politicians acknowledge that many agricultural workers in America are illegal, but they say a sharp decrease in their number may have pernicious effects on the food supply chain and farmer’s economies.
Douglas Holtz-Ekin, Republican and former Director of the Congress Budget Budget, said approximately 80% of US farmers were born abroad, with almost half of them being illegal in the country. Losing them will increase consumers’ prices, he said.
“This is bad for supply chains, bad for the agricultural industry,” said Holtz-Ekin.
More than one third of us vegetables and over three quarters of the country’s fruits and nuts are grown in California, according to the California Department of Food and Agriculture. State farms and ranches generated nearly $ 60 billion in agricultural sales in 2023.
Of the four immigrant farm workers, Reuters spoke, two are illegally in the country. These two spoke on condition of anonymity, of fear of being arrested by ice.
One, 54 years old, has worked in the US agricultural fields for 30 years and has a wife and children in the country. He said most of his colleagues stopped showing up for work.
“If they show up at work, they don’t know if they will ever see their family again,” he said.
The other worker in the country illegally told Reuters: “We are generally waking up in the morning. We are worried about the sun, the warmth and now a much more problem – many do not return home. I try not to get into trouble on the street. Now, who is arrested for some reason, it is deported.”
To be sure, some groups of the community of farmers have said that many workers are still returning to the field, despite the attacks, of economic need.
The days after the attack may see a reduced visit to the area, but workers soon return as they have no other sources of income, five groups told Reuters.
Workers are also taking other steps to reduce their exposure to immigration agents, such as traveling with people with legal status to work or send children to US citizens at the grocery store, the groups said.
Icy cold
Trump has admitted in a publication on his social account of his truth that the ice raids of agricultural workers – and also hotel workers – “They took very good, long -time workers away from these sectors,” as these jobs are almost impossible to replace. “
Later, Trump told reporters: “Our farmers are hurt badly. They have very good workers.” He added, “They are not citizens, but they turned out to be great.”
He promised to issue an order to deal with the impact, but has not yet entered into force policy.
Trump has always stood up for farmers, White House spokesman Anna Kelly said in response to a request for a comment on the impact of ice raids on farms.
“It will continue to strengthen our agricultural industry and increase exports, while keeping its promise to apply our immigration laws,” she said.
Bernard Yaros, a leading American economist at Oxford Economics, a non -party consultative firm for a global economy, said a report published on June 26 that born workers tend not to fill the void left by immigrant workers who left.
“Unauthorized immigrants tend to work in different professions than those born of the genus,” he said.
Ice operations in the agricultural land in California were scared even those authorized, said Greg Tash, who runs a farm in Central California.
“No one feels safe when they hear the word ice, even documented people. We know that the neighborhood is full of a combination of those with and without documents,” Tesh said.
“If things are ripe, with our neighbors having peppers bells here (if) they do not harvest within two or three days, the harvest is burned by the sun or above the mature,” Tesh said. “We need labor.”
(Report from Tim Reed, Sebastian Rokandio, Pilar Olivares and Leah Dougasit by Mary Millik and Rosalba O’Brien)