Farmers and Farm Workers

Farmers and Farm Workers

Even a cursory look at the intersection of the U.S. farm and immigration systems reveals a fundamental contradiction. While many farm operators depend on foreign labor, immigration law denies foreign workers legal status unless they arrive through the H-2A program. If a non-H-2A farm worker is in the wrong place at the wrong time, he or she can be expelled from the United States.

Growers have long urged authorities to look the other way as they employ a foreign-born, unauthorized workforce. But employers are now confronted with the possibility that using the E-Verify program for all new hires could become mandatory. With no viable alternative to immigrant labor, they are calling for reforms that would legalize their unauthorized workers.

The State Department has described poor working conditions on farms as “endemic,” and the number of slavery cases involving farm workers demonstrates the extreme vulnerability of farm workers to the actions of those in positions of relative power.³²

Florida has prosecuted several cases of abusive treatment of farm workers that met the legal definition of slavery. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers (CIW) played a key role in bringing these cases to light. Labor contractors, supervisors, and crew leaders are typically responsible for exploiting farm workers, although growers can use these intermediaries to try to shield themselves from charges of worker abuse by supervisors or of not intervening when abuse should have been suspected.

The most egregious abusers of immigrant farm laborers are sometimes unauthorized immigrants themselves. In one 2008 case, brothers Cesar and Giovanni Navarette and other members of their family—Mexican nationals— were found guilty of locking farm workers in trucks without running water or toilets, charging them $5 to wash using a garden hose, denying them pay, shackling them with chains, and slashing them with knives if they refused to work. Both Navarette brothers, as the leaders of this agricultural-worker slavery ring, pled guilty to charges of forced labor and other counts and received 12-year prison sentences.³³

Not all relationships between farm workers and growers are adversarial. Many farm workers and growers have long-term relationships where both parties prosper. Today, farm worker advocates agree with growers on issues central to farm labor reform; both groups want a stable, legalized system of farm labor. Farmworker Justice, an advocacy organization based in Washington, DC, seeks to “empower seasonal farm workers” and finds itself working toward goals that growers also embrace. “[Growers] want access to their workforce without worrying about raids by Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE),” says Farmworker Justice senior attorney Adrienne DerVartanian. California grower representative Manuel Cunha said that the increasing numbers of employment eligibility reviews conducted by ICE on farms have been “devastating to our industry.”