"‘Invisible’ migrant farmworkers cope with hurricane’s aftermath,"

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Georgia is one of the five states most reliant on the federal H-2A visa program, which allows employers to hire foreign workers for temporary agricultural jobs when there aren’t enough U.S.-born workers available. Georgia depends on these H-2A workers to fill about 60% of agricultural jobs.

[Hurricane] Helene hit just before harvest time for some of Georgia’s top crops, including cotton and peanuts. Pecan groves, poultry broilers and dairies also suffered widespread damage. In total, the storm’s destruction to agriculture and forestry totals $6.46 billion, according to a report of preliminary damage assessments by state officials and the University of Georgia.

As climate change worsens natural disasters, experts and advocates say farm and forestry workers, particularly those who are immigrants, are especially vulnerable. Workers say they feel forgotten by county and state officials who are focused on helping farm owners...

Government agencies’ attention is focused elsewhere, said Jodie Guest, a professor at the Rollins School of Public Health at Emory University in Atlanta who runs a health program for farmworkers in south Georgia. Farmworkers, she said, are “completely overlooked.”...

Michael Méndez, an assistant professor of environmental policy and planning at the University of California, Irvine, said the lack of government help forces these communities to improvise...