‘We’re putting down roots here:’ Vermont’s immigrant farm workers worried about Trump’s mass deportation plan

Thirteen years ago, Thelma followed her father from Tabasco, Mexico, to Vermont.

Thelma said family members were already working dairies in the Green Mountain State when she moved there five years ago.

Since joining a farm, he has been helping others who do not have legal permission to be in the United States fight for protections and rights. Now Thelma, like many in Vermont’s immigrant community, worries about her ability to stay in the place she has long called home.

President-elect Donald Trump He vowed to speed up deportations Number of immigrants without permission to live in the United States. Last week, Trump confirmed plans to declare a national emergency and use the military to pursue a mass deportation program. According to the New York Times.

About 11 million people are believed to be undocumented in 2022, the most recent year available. According to Pew Research Center. It’s hard to know exactly how many people without legal status live in Vermont, but experts at the University of Vermont and the Vermont Law and Graduate School estimate they number between 500 and 1,500, including about 300 in Chittenden County.

“We are alarmed by the possibility that we may see changes in policies because all the work we have done over the past few years to improve the protection of our community could be at risk.” Thelma said speaking Spanish. Will Lambeck, a spokesman for the Burlington-based advocacy organization Migrant Justice, translated the interview. VTDigger granted Thelma’s request to use only her first name due to fear of deportation.

Trump’s policy proposals pose a threat not just to individual immigrants in Vermont. Experts say the state’s food system, especially dairies, will take a serious hit if the new president implements his plans.

“These threats to deport people in droves will reveal how dependent our food system is on immigrant labor,” said Teresa Mares, an associate professor of anthropology at the University of Vermont and author of the 2019 book. Life on the Other Frontier: Farm Workers and Food Justice in Vermont.

Dairy farms in Vermont that have weathered the consolidation and industrial decline of the past few decades are generally “larger farms that tend to survive because of immigrant labor,” Mares said.

“If there is a mass deportation of dairy farm workers, our dairy farms will close much faster than they have already,” Mares said.

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with Emma Cotton
15 November 2024, 15:5815 November 2024, 15:58

Mismatched policies

Mares sees a landscape in the United States where immigration policies and agricultural policies do not align.

“Most of the farm workers are from outside the country, and most of them don’t have papers, right?” said Mares. “A lot of people in the food processing industry—whether it be chicken, meat, or other types of food processing—come from outside this country.”

Removing these people would create a massive labor shortage in the agricultural sector.

Mares said people who are “concerned about grocery prices right now” may need to be prepared for their grocery bills to “go completely out of whack” if large numbers of workers are deported.

“This affects us economically, but I think we also need to think about the fundamental human impacts of that when you instill fear in a large group of people,” he said.

While immigrants without legal permission to live in the United States have gradually become the backbone of the country’s food system, these same people lack protections, making them more susceptible to political change.

Mares sees a deliberate connection between workers’ lack of rights and their role in agriculture.

“The fear created by such policies means people are less likely to complain about poor working conditions and report violations because doing so could potentially put them into this mass deportation machine,” he said.

As a result, he said, expatriate workers often “can’t do much more than just work.”

People began migrating to Vermont from Mexico and elsewhere in Latin America in the late 1990s, Mares said.

While state leaders try to enact some protections for unauthorized immigrants, they face a major policy problem: There is no direct legal path for immigrants who want to work in the dairy industry. While the H2A visa program provides immigrants with opportunities to work legally in manufacturing industries, for example, dairy has no equivalent.

“And what that means is that most dairy workers in Vermont, Wisconsin, California and Idaho are not documented as coming from outside the country,” Mares said.

Mares is concerned about the H2A program, saying it’s “not a great model for workers.” But without any legal recourse, those who come to work in Vermont’s dairies and those on whom the state’s dairies depend remain vulnerable.

A broad sweep?

Vermont officials have questioned whether Trump’s large-scale plans will actually be implemented. a logistically challenging and resource-intensive process finding people, detaining them and removing them from the country.

The president-elect’s proposals may not be well-liked by some Republicans, given that farming is a major economic driver in many red states and that those farmers also rely on people without legal permission to live in the United States.

At a recent news conference, Gov. Phil Scott said he supports efforts to “secure our border” but called Trump’s plans to deport all immigrants who do not come to the country legally “unrealistic.”

“It is not unreasonable to say that we need to do something about those who are here illegally. That’s how we do it,” Scott said. “Who is he and is there a way for them to be here? I think this is something that Congress needs to act on immediately.”

During his first presidency, Trump focused on blocking legal immigration to the United States (for example, efforts to prevent refugees from predominantly Muslim countries from resettling in the country) rather than deporting undocumented immigrants, according to geography and earth sciences professor Pablo Bose. Dr., who researches migration at the University of Vermont.

“Trump people always want to take this big stance on undocumented workers,” Bose said. “But still, when the push came to shove, why did they put so much emphasis on legal immigration?”

Bose said legal ways to make these changes are easier and clearer than deporting people who are not here legally.

“A lot of times it’s not in the interest of the federal government or certainly not the interest of the local and state actors to remove people because you need these people,” Bose said.

Bose said the federal government has the authority to remove people who do not have permission to be lawfully in the United States. But there are still some steps Vermont can take to protect immigrants. Federal authorities often rely on local support when carrying out deportations, and local officials may choose not to cooperate with the effort.

“You can’t actually do that unless you can identify people, find people and do all that kind of stuff,” Bose said.

Vermont officials said they would take measures to protect immigrants from Trump administration sanctions if necessary.

Some of the protections implemented in response to the previous Trump administration may still help immigrants without legal documents. For example, Act 5The law, enacted by Vermont in 2017, prohibits government agencies from sharing personal information about people with federal authorities and did so in a way that ensures only the governor can enter into contracts to help immigration officials pursue enforcement.

Advocacy groups, including Immigrant Justice and the American Civil Liberties Union of Vermont, have encouraged authorities to go further by explicitly prohibiting police from sharing information with federal authorities about a person’s immigration or citizenship status. As Vermont Public reported last week.

Asked if he planned to take preventative measures this time around, the governor cited his actions in 2017 to protect “the people who are here, who we should have as part of our communities.”

But he said he did not take those actions until his administration and state lawmakers “knew more about what the president’s plan was at that time.”

“I’m not sure we know exactly what the plan is, because I don’t think what he’s proposing is realistic,” Scott said. “I have to think that those who came to power with him will understand this.”

Because the number of immigrants is relatively low compared to other states, Vermont may not be a top priority for the new president. Still, it’s hard to know how concerned immigrants without legal status in the U.S. should be, according to Laurie Beyranevand, director of the Center for Agriculture and Food Systems at the Vermont Law and Graduate School.

“I don’t think there’s anywhere Negative “It’s a target,” he said. “The number of people he wants to deport indicates that it will be spread out over a pretty wide area, which suggests to me that Vermont is in no way immune from these.”

‘Don’t forget the people’

Abby, an Orwell mother and restaurant worker who, like Thelma, immigrated to Vermont from Tabasco, Mexico, said she was afraid.

“We have roots here, and so we’re afraid of being evicted from our home,” Abby said, speaking to VTDigger in an interview also translated by Immigrant Justice’s Lambeck. “We’ve worked so hard to get here, and we’re afraid it’s going to be taken away from us.”

Aside from the direct policy implications, Thelma said she felt a different impact from Trump’s first presidency as a result of derogatory rhetoric towards immigrants. This time, that rhetoric is in play again: During the campaign this fall, Trump accused Haitian immigrants in Ohio of eating family pets, for example, and at a Trump rally, a comedian called Puerto Rico a “floating island of garbage.”

“When we think about these changes in politics, we also see a change in the political environment,” Thelma said. “Because of the change in our administration, people are freer to express their racism and discrimination against our society.”

Thelma said Vermonters have offered support and solidarity to those who have faced attacks and greater risks of deportation in the past. He said the aggressive rhetoric and deportation plans were “a denial of many of the values ​​that people in this state hold.”

“I know from the years we’ve been here, from the relationships we’ve built, that there are a lot of people in this state who have our backs and will have our backs for years to come,” he said. . “I think there are a lot of people in this state who need to look into their hearts and think deeply about why there is an immigrant community here.”

Protecting and providing for their families is not a necessity, he said.

While Vermont’s food system and economy would take a major hit if mass deportations became a reality here, Thelma urged Vermonters to be aware of the negative impacts on members of her community.

“I want readers to go beyond thinking about the economic impact of this and remember the people,” he said. “When people are targeted because of who they are, it has a real impact, emotionally and physically. I say again, I have been here for 13 years. “I’ve invested so much in this state, and to think that could be taken away from me is huge.”