‘We cannot feed ourselves as a country’: Northwest agriculture could be in jeopardy if mass deportations happen, farm groups warn

Washington State Dairy Federation Executive Director Dan Wood doesn’t carry around papers proving his citizenship in America.

But he knows others, often those of Hispanic heritage, feel they have to.

“I am a white guy,” he said. “People don’t come up to me and ask me for papers. … Sometimes people get stopped because of the color of their skin. I have seen it.”

Wood said he recalled a time where his friend, a bank manager, was approached by another man asking to see his papers. His friend’s grandfather was an immigrant.

“He wanted him to prove he was here legally. My friend, the bank manager, did not take well to that,” Wood said. “It was only because of his skin.”

In the agriculture industry, Wood is familiar with workers who are foreign born. According to a U.S. Department of Labor survey, nearly 68% of farmworkers were not born in the U.S., with a majority of them hailing from south of the border in Mexico.

Wood said he doesn’t know how many dairy workers are non-U.S. citizens. He doesn’t ask, because they are often eligible to work, anyway.

Detainments are rising following the inauguration of President Donald Trump, who pledged a massive overhaul to deport undocumented or noncitizens. He has since revoked programs allowing for immigrants to enter the country legally or to legally seek asylum.

Following Trump’s orders, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol detainments have increased across Tacoma and North Idaho, where people are held by federal authorities in a center or local jail.

Idaho lawmakers are also attempting to pass a law that allows local law enforcement to engage in immigration operations. The Idaho House voted along party lines Monday to pass the bill, according to reporting from the Idaho Capital Sun.

If enacted into law, it would allow local police to record a person’s documentation if they are under investigation for committing a crime. The person could face a misdemeanor charge of entering the country illegally and, if arrested a second time, could be charged with a felony and deported, according to the Sun.

Rick Naerebout, chief executive officer of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association, supported the bill. But it was only after working with the sponsors extensively to get it to a point where he would voice support. Last year, the association testified against a similar bill with more parameters that did not pass.

“We worked quite a bit … To sit down and talk through where our concerns were and offer suggestions. They worked with us on our concerns,” Naerebout said. “It’s directed at unauthorized people involved in criminal activity. So it’s more than traffic violations. If you got pulled over for not turning on your blinker, that would not trigger this bill.”

Immigration at the Idaho Dairymen’s Association is “hugely important” to their workforce, Naerebout said. About 90% of the workers at the dairymen’s association were not born in the U.S., he added.

The association also does not have access to a visa program, which has been a struggle over the years. Dairy programs are not certified to use the H-2A program or a temporary foreign worker program because dairy is year-round, and the program is purely seasonal. Other farmworkers focused on fruit picking and harvesting often are temporary.

“It’s a point of significant frustration when we’ve got large sectors of our economy that are dependent on that workforce,” he said.

As a whole, nearly half of agriculture workers across the U.S. are unauthorized immigrants, Naerebout said, so if those people were deported, the economy would practically collapse. The country would also see massive increases in inflation because there are fewer workers to produce goods, leading to an increase in pay and then costs in the pocket of the average American.

“Food inflation was a critical issue when it came to the ballot box in November. If you start to deport every single worker in the country that is unauthorized, you are going to have extreme inflation in those areas of our economy. That goes against the message the voters sent in November,” he said. “If you take away 50% of our workforce on farms, we cannot feed ourselves as a country. We are not arguing against enforcement, but we need to walk while we are chewing gum. We need to make sure there are enough visas to fill the jobs needed for our economy.”

Amid the detainments and talk of ICE sightings, Naerebout said the association has not personally seen federal enforcement at their sites – but there is fear.

“There is an increase in fear, and fear of the unknown,” he said. “Everybody’s hearing the same headlines, and there’s not a lot of clear indications. Like someone keeping their head down and not involved in criminal activity, will they be targeted? We don’t know.”

In Washington, Wood said he hasn’t observed any employees calling out of work or reported absent due to fears of deportation, but there are people “on edge.”

“A lot of times, there’s interplay between what’s going on at the border,” Wood said. “There is more generalized activity going on with ICE than what was forecast. They said they were going to go after people committing crimes.”

It’s unclear how many, if any, farmworkers in Washington have been detained and sent to the federal detention center in Tacoma. The center is almost at capacity, however, said Vanessa Gutierrez, the co-deputy director of Northwest Immigrant Rights Project. The project hosts orientation and guidance classes on immigration within the center, so they have a roster tabulating how many people are coming and going. Gutierrez said it’s not just people with criminal records who are being detained – it’s “anyone they come across who doesn’t have status, or has status and is deportable.”

Roxana Macias, the chief people and community officer for the Pacific Northwest’s Worker and Farmer Labor Association, has not seen a drop in workers because they haven’t hired for any seasonal jobs yet. But people are concerned it could affect the labor pool in the busy seasons.

A big misconception surrounding immigrant farmworkers, Macias said, is that foreign workers are prioritized over local, domestic workers. Of the employers who do take part in a visa program, though, about 20% of their workers are foreign, and are filling positions that domestic workers did not take.

The employer also must prioritize domestic workers who worked for them previously.

“Employers must hire workers in the U.S. before beginning to hire people who have visas,” she said. “In order to be approved for a visa, you have to test the labor market first for any U.S. domestic workers. And only if you can prove you didn’t have enough people apply, you can be granted a work visa.”

The main employers who use these programs are labor-intensive areas, Macias said. Those include nurseries, or cherry, peach, apple and pear picking.

Employers must also verify someone’s legal status as required by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service. But, different types of work authorization looks “a hundred different ways,” Macias said. It can come in terms of a visa or a green card or even working while obtaining asylum status.

“Employers are required to check to make sure they match the (United States employment) handbook. If they match, you must offer them employment,” she said. “Otherwise, it’s discrimination on the basis of national origin.”

Once a seasonal worker’s visa is expired, the person holding the visa is able to find another work contract, and that information will be transferred to a different employer. The employee can do this for up to three years before they must go back to their home country for six months, Macias said. Once that time is up, they are allowed to come back for more work. Most of the time, employers will see the same worker come back season after season, she said.

In the Idaho agriculture sector, Naerebout is held to the same standard of law when offering someone a job. But he has noticed there is a lack of domestic workers who want to apply, let alone make it through the hiring process.

“Very seldom do you see a domestic worker wanting to come in and fill agriculture jobs,” he said. “In talking with the H-2A contractors, last growing season, they had 6,000 positions they were advertising for. Of those, they had less than 35 domestic applications. Of those, they got 12 interviews. Of that, two resulted in employment. Neither of those made it to harvest before they quit.”

The belief that deportation should apply to everyone, in every work sector such as agriculture, feels somewhat out of touch for Naerebout.

If those people are deported, there simply will not be enough domestic workers to fill those spots.

“One has to appreciate those peoples’ statements are being made with a full stomach,” he said.