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Growers and workers alike worried about immigration raids

February 12, 2017

SALINAS — News of expanding immigration raids, leading to more than 160 detentions in Los Angeles last week, has sent waves of fear through the state's rural fields and farmlands, where growers and immigrant laborers alike are bracing for possible crackdowns on the state's agricultural heartland.

In Salinas Valley, one of the country's richest and most productive agricultural regions, President Donald Trump's repeated threats to act against "sanctuary" policies and to deport undocumented immigrants has already created chilling uncertainty in a region dubbed the "Salad Bowl of the World." The valley produces two-thirds of the nation's lettuce and more than half of its broccoli.

Some growers in the region fear that these actions may lead to a new kind of drought -- a farm labor drought that may leave millions of dollars of strawberries, lettuce and grapes unpicked.The tension has increased since Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials conducted what they termed "surge operations" last week that netted 161 people -- most, but not all, of them with criminal convictions. Officials told UPI that 37 of those detained in Los Angeles have been deported to Mexico.

"The executive order is causing a lot more uneasiness among those workers whose status may be in question,'' says Norman Groot, who heads the Farm Bureau of Monterey County, a region where crop production values in 2016 hit a record $4.8 billion. That's higher than what more than half the nation's states produce.

In the coming months, he said, "it may be a lot of more difficult for ranchers and farmers to count on the work force as they need them." He said growers will be nervous as workers decide whether they will stay or "go home and be safe."

"Our hope is most people will see through the rhetoric and see they are not in imminent deporting status," Groot said. But that hope seems to be clashing with reality. Groot said he knows of instances where lettuce and strawberries have been ruined because of a labor shortage. "These crops cannot be harvested mechanically, because of the nature of the crops," he said.

"So it's very difficult to manage a situation where you need a lot of hands and skilled labor, and where you have fields being left to waste,'' he said. "That shouldn't be happening in this country.'

U.S. Rep. Zoe Lofgren, D-San Jose, a former immigration attorney who has served as the ranking Democrat on the House immigration subcommittee, says as many as 70 to 80 percent of the state's immigrant agricultural workers are undocumented. Most of them are from Mexico and Central America, and many have been working the fields for decades.

Lofgren says the immediate concern is that the Trump administration appears to be expanding the circle of undocumented immigrants who appear at risk of deportation. Of the estimated 11 million undocumented immigrants in the United States, Lofgren believes about eight million "are on their target list."

Fear was palpable in Salinas on Sunday as immigrants jammed the town hall meeting on a sunny afternoon to express their concerns and to talk to representatives from advocacy groups like Catholic Charities and the United Farmworkers.

"This is a place that produces so much for America, and not only in the fields,'' said one undocumented Latina laborer who arrived at Panetta's event with three children under 15 -- all born in the U.S. -- and her husband. "We're so worried, especially for the kids. If someone takes away mom and dad -- what happens to them?"

The couple, who immigrated from the Mexican state of San Luis Potosi nearly 17 years ago, declined to give their names for publication, saying they lack green cards and proper documentation and felt endangered by the uptick in ICE raids.

"We came for information,'' the mother said in Spanish, but added that many in California's immigrant community still are in the dark about their futures, even after working here for years or even decades. "Many of them don't speak Spanish, they're from areas like Oaxaca and speak their own dialects, and a lot of them can't read or write,'' she said. "It's harder for them to figure out what's going on with Trump."

Panetta tried to ease their concerns, saying he has been assured that ICE currently plans no actions in the Salinas Valley.

"Since [Trump's inauguration] there's no doubt that we have felt we have been tested ... and I know you want to push back,'' Panetta told the crowd. He vowed "to not cower and continue moving forward ... so that you can continue contributing to our community, a place that all of us call home."

"You are not alone,'' he said, adding in Spanish: "No estas solo. No estas solo."

But the Mexican worker from San Luis Potosi, watching with his wife, didn't appear entirely reassured.

"If they take away the immigrant workers -- who is going to pick the produce in the fields, and watch the kids of the business people in town? Who is going to do their gardening, and take out their trash?'' the husband asked. "Do you think Trump's people will do the dirty work? I don't think so."