The Undocumented are Essential Workers

50-75 percent of the workers who grow, harvest, and process the food we eat are undocumented. Especially under the Trump administration, they do their work while living in fear of being deported. Yet these farmworkers are now considered essential  based on guidelines distributed by the Department of Homeland security. The bottom line is that, during this crisis, the federal government has finally stated publicly that these workers are essential. It’s there in black and white in a DHS document. If we want to eat, we need these workers to grow, harvest, and process the foods we consume on a daily basis—whether we’re dealing with a pandemic or not.

As a result, many employers have provided farmworkers with letters identifying them as “essential” in order to protect them while traveling to and from the workplace. Those letters do not, however, protect them from deportation.

Many of these undocumented workers are at high risk for contracting coronavirus—especially those in processing plants where they work in close quarters. Without sick days or health insurance, that doesn’t simply pose a danger to them, but to those of us who consume these products as well.

Movimiento Cosecha, an immigrant rights group, said "the lives of essential workers feeding the country during this pandemic simply do not matter to the agriculture industry or to the government."

"While immigrant farmworkers risk their lives working without sufficient protection during this dangerous time, this country is excluding them from federal relief packages and lobbying to lower their wages," the group tweeted Saturday. "For immigrant workers, this is a call to action. Without our working hands, there is no labor to sustain this country—during crisis and always."

https://www.alternet.org/2020/04/its-a-cruel-irony-that-so-many-of-our-essential-workers-are-also-deemed-illegal/

https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/04/11/bullying-marginalized-workers-trump-moves-slash-pay-guest-farmworkers-amid-covid-19