‘Everyone’s nervous’: U.S. farmers gather in San Antonio ahead of mass deportations
As President Trump’s mass deportation of unauthorized immigrants is ramping up, a question many have is: How will this impact American farms? And that is also a question that farmers are asking.
At the American Farm Bureau Federation convention in San Antonio this weekend, Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall summed up the mood regarding mass deportations and agriculture labor.
“Everyone’s nervous,” Duvall told TPR. “I think what makes us most nervous is we don’t know what steps the full deportation plan has in it.”
Duvall said he is hearing from some farmers that migrant workers are not showing up. But he has not heard any reports of Immigration and Customs Enforcement conducting raids at farms and agricultural businesses...
But Brent Hollard, a northern Illinois farmer at the convention, said a mass deportation reduction in farm labor is going to hurt farmers.
“Whether it’s a row crop farm, or a specialty, or just a livestock farm like I have, it is very, very tough to get people to help us on our farms,” Hollard said. “We do have some farm labor that we use.”...
“We are already seeing people are not showing up for work. They’re not sending their children to school,” said Kathleen Bush-Joseph, a Policy Analyst at the Migration Policy Institute.
She said an aggressive immigration crackdown would have a wide range of impact across America — in multiple economic sectors.
...