Are Central Valley growers exploiting temporary H-2A agricultural farm workers? | Opinion

As a spokesperson for the United Farm Workers, I feel compelled to address inflated accounts of farmworkers not reporting to their jobs due to fears of deportation which has resulted in lost crops and higher food prices. Some accounts have claimed that as many as 75% of field workers are absent. But it’s simply not true.

Let me set the record straight: The Central Valley winter citrus harvest is proceeding normally. United Farm Workers has spoken with valley citrus, almond, pistachio and wine grape workers, and while the fear among immigrant laborers is palpable, they must work to feed their families.

The real danger in these false narratives which have recently emerged, however, is that they inadvertently aid growers who are cynically using threats of mass deportations and higher food costs to justify expanding the exploitative H-2A agricultural guest worker program. Their agenda is replacing the domestic farm labor work force — now comprising both documented and undocumented farm workers — with many more H-2A quest workers brought in from outside the country.

The H-2A Temporary Agricultural Workers program “allows U.S. employers or U.S. agents who meet specific regulatory requirements to bring foreign nationals to the United States to fill temporary agricultural jobs,” according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

These workers are at a greater disadvantage than undocumented workers: If undocumented workers are mistreated, at least they have the option to leave and work elsewhere. More vulnerable H-2A workers, however, are at the total mercy of employers who control their livelihoods through the visas they obtain for their employees. If H-2A workers complain about abuse, they are immediately shipped home. The H-2A program is practically serfdom.

We should expect local law enforcement and other public entities to obey California laws forbidding them in most cases from aiding federal immigration authorities. The rights of all Californian must be protected, and we should call on state and local officials to keep undocumented people safe from raids and deportations if possible.

But it’s also safe to say that California politicians have little — if any — sway with President Donald Trump.

That’s why it might just be effective to call on growers to protect their own workers by appealing to Trump. They have much more influence (judging by the big pro-Trump signs I saw prominently displayed on farmland while driving up and down the Central Valley during last year’s election season). Yet, these employers have been strangely silent about appealing to Trump. Could it be they have a different agenda? Is it because what they really seek is replacing the domestic work force with the more compliant and easy-to-exploit H-2A guest workers?

The UFW doesn’t want farm workers deported. But it also doesn’t want them exploited.

The last time Trump was president, he tried cutting the wages of H-2A guest workers, which would also suppress the pay of domestic farm workers. The UFW went to federal court and stopped him.

Ironically, despite their fear, farm workers continue winning genuine organizing gains under a 2022 California law and a 2019 New York state law making it safer to vote in the union. Workers at five California companies recently voted in the UFW — as have workers at eight New York farms.

Even before Trump took office, during the last weeks of the Biden administration, U.S. Border Patrol and Immigration and Customs Enforcement jumped the gun by conducting raids in Kern County. They claimed to be targeting serious criminals, yet they were racially profiling only farm workers and Latinos. People with no criminal records, including UFW members, were detained and speedily removed from the country.

On behalf of its union members, the UFW just joined a lawsuit as a plaintiff filed against the Trump administration by the American Civil Liberties Union. The suit alleges unlawful seizure, including pulling over cars for no cause; issuing warrant-less arrests, since immigration agents need a judicial warrant to enter private homes or vehicles; and forcing people to waive their legal rights to proceedings by heavily pressuring them to be voluntarily removed to Mexico, sometimes within hours of being detained.

The UFW is dedicated to helping keep farm worker families together by fighting the cruel oppression of essential workers. We are joining with other unions by supporting immigrants across California in the difficult months ahead through masses and other religious services, marches and protests and by educating people about their rights.

The resistance is just starting.