As the summer harvest launches, uncertainty hangs over California fields

While the crucial season of summer harvests begins in the vast agricultural regions of California, farmers and their workers say they feel whipped by a series of contradictory signals on the way in which the Trump administration against illegal immigration could affect them.

California cultivates more than a third of the country’s vegetables and more than three -quarters of the nation’s fruit and nuts in the fertile expanses of the central valley, the central coast and other agricultural regions. The industry produced nearly $ 60 billion in goods in 2023, According to state figures – a production which depends strongly on the work qualified by a workforce which is at least 50% undocumented, according to the studies of the University of California.

Without workers, juicy beef steak tomatoes that ripen and must be agitated by hand will rot on the vineyards. The yellow peaches reaching this delicate mixture of sweet and pie will fall to the ground, not picked. Ditto with melons, grapes and cherries.

This is why, when federal immigration officers entered the Oxnard berry fields last week and owned 40 agricultural workers, producers from top to bottom of the state were worried about their workers.

Agricultural workers, many of whom have lived and worked in their communities for decades, were terrified by being gathered and expelled, separated from their families and their livelihoods. The farmers feared that their workforce disappears – either locked in the detention centers, or forced the shadow for fear of stopping – just as their work was most necessary. Everyone wanted to know if the Raids in Oxnard were the beginning of a broader repression on the scale of the state which would radically disturb the harvest season – which is also the period when most agricultural workers earn the most money – or simply a unique application action.

In the days that followed, the answers did not become clearer, according to farmers, workers’ defenders and elected officials.

“We, as an agricultural community of California, try to understand what is going on,” said Ryan Jacobsen, director general of the Fresno County Farm Bureau and farmer for almonds and grapes. He added that “time is essence”, because farms and orchards “come in our busiest time”.

After the raids in the county of Ventura last week, the producers across the country began to put pressure on the Trump administration, arguing that measures to apply agricultural operations could hinder food production. They highlighted the fields around Oxnard after the Raid, where, according to the Bureau of the County Ferme de Ventura, up to 45% of workers stayed at home in the following days.

President Trump seemed to receive the message. On Thursday, he posted on Truth Social that “our great farmers”, as well as the leaders of the hotel industry, complained that his immigration policies “took very good long -standing workers, with these jobs almost impossible to replace”.

He added that it was “not good” and “changes arrive!”

The same day, According to a New York Times reportA senior American immigration official and customs application wrote regional ice directors telling them to dismiss farms, as well as restaurants and hotels.

“As of today, please keep all the surveys / operations to apply construction sites into agriculture (including aquaculture and meat packaging factories), restaurants and operational hotels,” the manager wrote.

Many in California agriculture have taken heart.

Then, Monday, came news, reported for the first time in the Washington Post, that the directive to stay outside farms, hotels and restaurants had been reversed.

“There will be no safe spaces for industries that house violent criminals or will deliberately try to undermine the efforts of the ice,” said Tricia McLaughlin, deputy secretary of the Ministry of Internal Security, in a statement to Times. “These operations target the illegal job networks that undermine American workers, destabilize the labor markets and exhibit critical infrastructure for exploitation.”

In the heart of California, Jacobsen of Fresno County Farm Bureau spoke for many farmers when he said: “We have no idea at the moment.”

Questioned Tuesday to clarify the administration policy on immigration raids in agricultural land, the spokesperson for the White House, Abigail Jackson, said that the Trump administration was determined to “enforce the federal immigration law”.

“While the president focuses on the immediate abolition of foreign criminal foreigners from the country,” said Jackson, “anyone who is illegally here is likely to be expelled.”

However, Jacobsen and others noted, apart from the upheavals of the county of Ventura last week, the agricultural operations in other parts of the State were largely spared mass immigration sweeping.

The workers, on the other hand, continued to present themselves to work, and most of them even returned to the fields of the county of Ventura.

There was a notable result of last week’s raids.

“Some employers are trying to take measures to protect their employees, as best they can,” said Armando Elenes, Treasurer Secretary of the United Farm workers.

He said that his organization and others have trained employers on how to react if immigration agents present themselves on their farms or their packaging. A basic message, he said: Do not allow agents on property if they do not have a signed mandate.

Indeed, many producers whose properties have been attacked in the county of Ventura seem to have understood this; The defenders said that federal agents had been diverted from a number of farms because they did not have a mandate.

In the county of Ventura, Lucas Zucker, co-executive director of the Central Coast Alliance United for a sustainable economy, a group which has often disagreed with producers of questions such as workers ‘wages and protections, underlined the unusual alliance which forged between farmers and workers’ defenders.

Two days after the raids, Zucker read a statement condemning immigration scans on behalf of Maureen McGuire, director general of Ventura County Farm Bureau, an organization that represents producers.

“Farmers deeply care about their workers, not as an abstract work, but as human beings and members of the community who deserve dignity, security and respect,” said McGuire in the press release. “The agriculture of the county of Ventura depends on it. California’s economy depends on it. The American food system depends on it. ”

Before reading the declaration, Zucker spoke of light laughter when he said to the crowd: “For those of you familiar [with] County of Ventura, you might be surprised to read the reading of a declaration from the Farm Bureau. We face on many questions, but this is something where we are united and where we literally speak in one voice. »»

“The agricultural industry and agricultural workers are both attacked, the federal agencies appearing at the door,” said Zucker later. “Nothing brings people together like a common enemy.”

This article is part of the time ‘ Actions report initiative,, funded by the James Irvine Foundationexploring the challenges faced by California’s economic divide.