Last August, a van carrying seven farmworkers in rural Marion County was stopped by immigration agents. OPB reported on the arrest of the farmworkers, including a man identified as LJPL in court documents. He was arrested even though he had no criminal record and had a pending asylum application. That case and others involving the arrests of workers at dairy farms in Wisconsin and Vermont and a beef processing facility in Nebraska are described in a recent article by Investigate Midwest. The investigation offers a rare glimpse into how the Trump administration’s aggressive immigration enforcement tactics are playing out in rural farming communities in different states.
It found, for example, that these arrests happen even when immigration agents know that the individual has no criminal record. Attorneys also face obstacles getting access to their clients to challenge their detentions before they’re moved across state lines or deported. Meanwhile, the immigration raids are leaving employers such as family-owned farms and meatpacking plants scrambling to fill shifts or find reliable, non-immigrant labor for these jobs.
Sky Chadde, senior reporter at Investigate Midwest, joins us to share more details.
