Crops Rot While Trump-Led Immigration Backlash Idles Farm Work
- Fresh produce harvests limited while migrant debate languishes
- Secure-border solution may send fruits, vegetables to Mexico
The State of the U.S. Farm Economy
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The death of meaningful U.S. immigration reform, done in by Washington partisanship and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s incendiary comments on foreigners, is leaving crops withering in the field and the farm lobby with nowhere to turn as a labor shortage intensifies.
Carlos Castaneda watched one-quarter of his Napa cabbages rot in three California fields this spring as 37 immigrant laborers scheduled to arrive March 13 under a farmworker visa program were delayed by bureaucratic paperwork. He said he wants changes to an immigration system that causes his crops to rot unharvested. But he has little hope that will happen in this political climate.