Elizabeth Henderson’s opinion editorial
As a farmer who grew vegetables for over 30 years in Wayne County, NY, I am keenly aware that most of the farmwork in my county and across the whole country, especially on the biggest farms producing most of the food in US stores, is done by recent immigrants.
We hear angry voices talking about an invasion by immigrants who are coming to take our jobs. In fact, very few citizens want to work on farms. According to the Department of Labor, roughly half of the farmworkers lack legal status and live in the shadows, constantly subject to arrest and deportation, yet they continue to work for wages and benefits that are lower than other sectors. Undocumented immigrants contributed $96.7 billion in US taxes in 2022 and paid higher state and local tax rates than the top 1% of households in the vast majority of states. Per capita, they paid $8,889 in total taxes. A full one-third of this money went towards programs that exclude them from benefits because of their immigration status.
We hear angry voices denouncing immigrants as criminals, murderers and rapists. But factual data shows that immigrants are less likely to commit violent crimes than people born in this country. A study that went back 150 years found that in all that time, immigrants committed fewer crimes than people born in the US.
I myself am a third generation citizen, descended from refugees from political upheaval and economic disaster in Europe, as are so many of the farmers I know. Together, several of us wrote a public statement that over a hundred organic farmers signed onto. We affirm that we know these hard-working people well. There would not be food on many tables in this country without their labor. Many of them are new entry farmers who overcame daunting obstacles to establish outstanding farms and farm networks. Farmworkers make enormous sacrifices, separating from their families for long stretches, missing important family milestones, even sickness and death, to contribute to the US food system by working jobs that very few US citizens are willing to do.
We go on to say that “as organic farmers, we are a strong, diverse, entrepreneurial, and innovative community. Among us, immigrants have contributed significantly to the advancement of organic and regenerative agriculture that is grounded in indigenous ecological knowledge. Organic agriculture has been greatly enhanced by the hard-working descendants of the original people of this continent–from Latin America up through Canada–who now have to migrate across national borders that cut across their own ancestral lands, just to make ends meet and to support their families…
The current US immigration system is a nightmare. It has grown even more violent and oppressive as more people are forced from their homelands by extreme poverty, paramilitary violence, and environmental devastation. As people who are ourselves the descendants of immigrants to this country, we want legislation for comprehensive immigration reform that establishes fair and humane immigration policies. We must create a pathway to citizenship for the undocumented and respect the humanity and dignity of all immigrants. We welcome the many farmers among the tide of immigrants. We want them to receive land and resources for farming it.
We call for an end to targeting and attacking the caring, hard-working people who come to our country seeking to provide a better life for their families. A truly sustainable system of food and farming is not possible without justice for all the people of the earth.
