ICE is melting our farm workers away

Farming in Arizona wasn't already challenging enough

This hacienda is an adobe territorial surrounded with a huge tin roofed porch that sings when the monsoons come. At night the stubborn family sleeps in pitch darkness under a billion stars between the Chiricahuas and the Dragoons and a hundred lost dreams. One of acre after acre in a long flat valley of baked farm land with tapped out wells and rusty windmills. In this old house the old man was the third generation of Arizonans to work the family farm here east of the San Pedro in Cochise County.

Woman, how’s breakfast coming along? We got to get going. Sun’s coming up.

Hold your horses. I’m reading the newspaper. You’ll get your eggs soon enough. Well, I’ll be- These two stories don’t make any sense.

What stories?

One story says there’s too many of us, more than 8 billion!- and the population keeps growing and climate change is going to make it impossible to feed everybody and we’re all going to starve to death.

Makes perfect sense to me, woman. I’m starving right now. What’s the other story?

Folks around the world are saying there aren’t enough young people to replace us dinosaurs and they want people to have more babies. Want your’s scrambled?

Uh huh. Thank you. Listen, I was thinking-

Shush, you old fool. I’m listening to Farm and Ranch Report. You want toast with your coffee?

Yes, I-

I can’t hear the news on the radio.

What’s that?

It’s a device that broadcasts radio waves so we can hear what’s happening in the world.

I know what a radio is, woman. What’s the news?

Some damn fool new thing out of Washington thanks to the idiots you voted for..

“Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said-“

-She’s outta her mind. And league.

Shush.

“- on Tuesday during a news conference that there will be no amnesty for migrant farm laborers and mass deportations will continue with the goal of achieving a ‘100% American workforce.’ And-”

-Are they completely nuts? I voted Republican my whole life and now that lying traitor in the White House is stabbing farmers like me in the back. “no amnesty for migrant farm laborers and mass deportations will continue!” What the Hell?

Earl, ICE is raiding farms now! And rounding up field workers. What’ll we do without help picking our crops? What are you going to do?

Christ, I don’t know yet. Turn up the radio, hon’.

“Secretary Rollins cited the number of adults in the Medicaid program, saying there are plenty of workers available in America. When you think about it, there are 34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program. There are plenty of workers in America, but we just have to make sure we are not compromising today, especially in the context of everything we are thinking about right now.”

What in the name of God and John Deere did all of that shovel load of horse manure mean?

“So, no amnesty under any circumstances, mass deportations continue, but in a strategic and intentional way, as we move our workforce towards more automation and towards a 100% American workforce.”

Turn that goddam radio off. A 100% American work force? Picking our cotton, our pistachios, our tomatos and our corn? Bailing our hay? Able-bodied people on Medic-aid? With walkers? Oxygen tanks. Is that what these concentration camps are for? Work camps? Slave camps?

That’s crazy talk, Earl. You lay off that moonshine from Hermosillo, old man.

How will they get here? Who will house them? Who will feed them?

Who will feed the world?

It's not like we didn't try to hire Americans;, but nobody wanted to work. It's too hard. Even our boys said no thanks soon as they could work at the ACE Hardware. Why pick lettuce when you can get a job working a cash register at the McDonald's in Benson or bagging groceries at the Safeway in Wilcox.

Honey, you don't have to tell me.

All of us in this valley did it, year in, year out. All of us. We all hired workers from Mexico. My daddy did it when he owned this farm. And his daddy did it when this was just a little ranch in the middle of-

I know…

I even bulldozed a path through the brush so crossers could come to work our place. Everybody did it. They could have just fixed immigration but no they had to chose the path of pure unmitigated hate. Crops will die. The price of food will go up.

We could lose everything.

I don’t care. We are not taking any forced labor on this property. Ever. My ranch is not a goddam plantation. What in Hell has happened to my country?

I hope they're raiding all those fancy farms, those vineyards up in Napa Valley. The ones owned by all their rich Republican friends. Bastards.

What about all those zillions of farmers in shifty Kristi Noem’s home state of South Dakota?

Oh man they got millions of acres of corn, soybeans, wheat up there. Good place to start their goddam mass deportations. Better than California and Arizona and-

What was that?

Rooster crowing. Sun is peeking over the Chiricahuas. We got to quit jawboning and get on with our day, woman.

You gonna tell Jose and his brothers what we heard on the radio just now? They’ll be showing up for work at 7.

I got to tell ‘em. Got to warn ‘em. I don't want them treated like they’re some kind of criminals. Thrown in prison for working. They’re human beings. Yeah. I’ll tell them.

I’ll place the help wanted in the Bisbee Observer. Help wanted picking crops. Back breaking. No room for advancement. No benefits. But the pay is cheap and the hours are long! Must be able bodied and 100% American. MAGA welcome, if you can bend over without dying.

You’re funny.

I think so.

Laugh to keep from crying.

I’ll call the bank. The feed store...

Thanks, hon’. I’ll see what our neighbors are going to do about this after I talk to Jose and the crew.

Maybe we should talk to our congressman—whoever the Hell he is.

Juan somebody.

Ciscomani.

He’ll listen to reason, right?

He didn’t vote for this, did he?