Targeting Immigrants Threatens Our Ability to Feed Ourselves

We cannot separate food system policies from immigration policies!

With nearly 28 million workers, the food system has the most workers of any industry in the US. All throughout the supply chain; our food was grown, harvested, processed, cooked, and served by immigrants. In 2017, Food-related jobs had twice the number of undocumented workers as the US workforce as a whole, and agriculture far outpaces the other industries in terms of the number of immigrants employed. About 70% of all farmworkers are immigrants, and the number of foreign-born workers in agriculture has been trending upward. Attacks on our immigrant neighbors are attacks on our own food system. 

Immigrants keep our economies strong!

Despite the right-wing lies, we know that immigrant communities make significant contributions to the US economy, with nearly 1 in 6 tax dollars paid to our local, state, and federal governments coming from immigrant households. It is not just the immigrant communities that benefit, non-immigrant households also receive an income boost from the increase in productive capacity to our shared economy. 

Trump’s executive orders are disastrous for the food system!

In less than a month, the administration has released a slew of executive orders focused on immigration and deportation. In the short-term this will have devastating impacts from farms to grocery shelves to school lunches; reducing food availability and raising already high food costs. Long-term, we expect that gaps in food systems jobs will result in an expansion of the H-2A visa program, which will further undermine the wages and working conditions of all farm workers. 

Farmworker leaders know the solutions that are needed!

During times when our communities are under attack, uplifting the experiences and visionary leadership of farmworkers is more critical than ever. Testimonials from more than a dozen years of Farmworkers Tribunals in Olympia have shown the insidious ways that the H-2A visa program, challenges to overtime, and retaliation, been used to suppress our rights to organize for the just food future we know we all need.  Our work at Community to Community and Familias Unidas por la Justicia grows ever more critical as we advocate for farmworkers to take their rightful place in co-creating legislation and policy solutions in Washington state and beyond. 

We are working to ensure: 

The health and wellbeing of farmworkers and their families is protected and nurtured.

Capital, land and training to support farmworker economic development is secured.

Farmworkers are guaranteed a voice to shape government decisions.