{"id":542,"date":"2026-07-31T15:14:04","date_gmt":"2026-07-31T15:14:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/frontierhousingreport.com\/?p=542"},"modified":"2026-07-31T15:14:04","modified_gmt":"2026-07-31T15:14:04","slug":"top-farmworker-fear-is-family-separation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/frontierhousingreport.com\/?p=542","title":{"rendered":"Top Farmworker Fear Is Family Separation"},"content":{"rendered":"
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California farmworker Yazmin, a recipient of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA), has been in the United States for more than 20 years and worked as an agricultural laborer for almost as long. These days, she goes to work each day afraid, not knowing if she\u2019ll make it back home to her husband and two daughters.<\/p>\n

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\u201cFamily separation worries me a lot,\u201d she told an audience Thursday morning, speaking in Spanish, which an interpreter translated to English. \u201cI live with stress, uncertainty, and fear. My family and I have had to make changes and we\u2019ve also had to implement a family plan. I\u2019ve even had to have conversations with our daughters about what could possibly happen. They\u2019re small and they don\u2019t really understand what\u2019s happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

More from Whitney Curry Wimbish<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

This is such an ever-present fear, she told those gathered to hear about from the United Farm Workers (UFW) Foundation, that when one of her daughters turned 11 years old the other day, the family refrained from going out to celebrate. Yazmin described a necessarily cloistered life: She goes to work, the grocery store, and little else.<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cI think most workers are just like me.\u201d<\/p>\n

The results of the UFW Foundation\u2019s research bear that out. According to its survey of 2,250 farmworkers across 16 states, family separation is the top fear, with 90 percent of respondents saying so. Eighty-eight percent said they feared detention and deportation.<\/p>\n

Respondents said that like Yazmin and her family, those fears have led them to withdraw from society, including in ways that may harm their own well-being. Sixty-one percent have shopped less, almost a third said they have not sought medical care when they needed it, and 21 percent have become careful about social media.<\/p>\n

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Read: Trump administration routinely violating immigrant children\u2019s rights<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

The UFW Foundation\u2019s research, \u201cUnder the Sun and Out of the Shadows,\u201d is the first of its kind and focuses on the people most affected by President Trump\u2019s immigration policies. The majority of participants were from California, with some from Georgia, Michigan, Washington, and 12 other states. While most farmworkers are undocumented, researchers refrained from asking about participants\u2019 immigration status to protect their identities. They also allowed participants to skip questions they didn\u2019t want to answer, and to withdraw their answers entirely if they changed their mind after the fact.<\/p>\n

The results illustrate that farmworkers are long-term U.S. residents who are deeply embedded into their communities as they endure terror not only from Trump\u2019s mass deportation campaign, but U.S. immigration policy in general, which leaves them vulnerable to employers who use the situation to their advantage.<\/p>\n

Eighty percent of respondents have lived in the U.S. for more than a decade; 41 percent have lived in the U.S. for more than two decades.<\/p>\n

More than 40 percent have worked as agricultural laborers for over two decades.<\/p>\n

Deportation raids affect farmworkers almost universally, with 92 percent saying roundups and deportations have impacted their employment.<\/p>\n

Beyond the immediate crisis of ongoing mass deportation, respondents reported that the federal government\u2019s immigration policies have harmed them in other ways. Nearly half of respondents said they have not lived in their country of origin for years, with 43 percent saying they fear U.S. officials will prevent them from returning. Thirteen percent said they fear persecution in their country of origin. As the recent execution of married couple Nixon Giovanni P\u00e9rez Paz and Glendy Marisol Gonz\u00e1lez de la Cruz illustrates, forced removal to a country of origin can be a death sentence. Guatemalan authorities found the two bound, gagged, beaten, and shot to death in a sugarcane field this month, shortly after Gonz\u00e1lez de la Cruz self-deported to be with her husband, whom ICE deported in 2025.<\/p>\n

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The UFW Foundation points out that Congress has enacted no meaningful immigration reforms since 1986, and has since only expanded the use of H-2A visas, a guest worker program that requires people to return to their country of origin after their work contract ends. Workers on an H-2A visa have no permanent legal status and no pathway to permanent residency; employers can easily exploit workers on H-2A visas because they can simply deport anyone who complains. As a result, the H-2A program is notorious for fostering an environment where employers sexually assault and traffic workers, withhold their pay, and subject them to other abuses.<\/p>\n

Instead of expanding that program, the survey report highlighted instead the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which in 2019 and 2021 passed in the House with bipartisan support, but has gone on to stall in the Senate. The law would outline a path for undocumented farmworkers to stay in the United States, with requirements like demonstrating a work history and passing criminal background checks, and protect them from detention and deportation. Above all, it would keep families together, \u201cthe most crucial priority expressed by farm workers in this survey.\u201d<\/p>\n

Asked what they would do if Congress reformed immigration law to allow them to earn legal status, 87 percent of respondents said their first act would be to visit loved ones in their country of origin.<\/p>\n

The survey also illustrates that farmworkers are professionals enduring cruel policies to perform a job that requires experience and skill. Brooke Rollins, the far-right secretary of agriculture, downplayed how thoroughly mass deportations are gutting the agricultural workforce, saying last year that farms can fill vacancies by using robots and by hiring millions of U.S. citizens who use Medicaid, and who are now subject to new work requirements.<\/p>\n

The idea is ludicrous, not only because most Medicaid recipients are already employed, but because farmwork is a serious job that an untrained worker would be unable to perform, despite what Republican lawmakers pretend to believe. As the UFW Foundation survey shows, the vast majority of workers surveyed have spent at least ten years performing farmwork. Forty-one percent have been on the job for 20 years. That means that they\u2019ve built not only a life in the U.S. but the skills needed to do the work fast and well.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve gone out to the fields and I\u2019ve seen them work, and it\u2019s not an easy task. It\u2019s something you learn from years of doing that work. You need to do it quickly. So this idea that anyone can step inside a field and perform as efficiently as a farmworker who has decades of experience is just false,\u201d said Leydy Rangel, senior communications and marketing director of the UFW Foundation.<\/p>\n

She added that farmworkers worked through the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, through wildfires and heat waves, to bring in the harvest.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s important for most of us to realize that every single food that we have in our fridge, every vegetable, every fruit, comes from the hands of the farmworkers. It passed through their hands before it got to us,\u201d she said. \u201cWithout farmworkers we wouldn\u2019t have any food on our tables.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read more Hot Centrist Summer Was a Bust<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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A first-of-its-kind survey by the UFW Foundation quantifies the impact of Trump\u2019s mass deportation campaign on farmworkers, the vast majority of whom are undocumented.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":541,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[263],"class_list":["post-542","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-working-in-america","tag-tagged-agriculture-congress-daca-donald-trump-ice-immigration-labor-law-justice-ufw-visas-working-in-america"],"yoast_head":"\nTop Farmworker Fear Is Family Separation - Frontier Housing Report<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/frontierhousingreport.com\/?p=542\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Top Farmworker Fear Is Family Separation - Frontier Housing Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A first-of-its-kind survey by the UFW Foundation quantifies the impact of Trump\u2019s mass deportation campaign on farmworkers, the vast majority of whom are undocumented.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/frontierhousingreport.com\/?p=542\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Frontier Housing Report\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-07-31T15:14:04+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"admin\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"6 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/frontierhousingreport.com\\\/?p=542#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/frontierhousingreport.com\\\/?p=542\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"admin\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/frontierhousingreport.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/13a8c63a4bd3b73600b541c1532fc247\"},\"headline\":\"Top Farmworker Fear Is Family Separation\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-31T15:14:04+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/frontierhousingreport.com\\\/?p=542\"},\"wordCount\":1200,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/frontierhousingreport.com\\\/?p=542#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/frontierhousingreport.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/e596b0f25c7e76ce347cfa7ce731883c.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Tagged: agriculture,\u00a0Congress,\u00a0DACA,\u00a0Donald Trump,\u00a0ICE,\u00a0Immigration,\u00a0labor,\u00a0Law & Justice,\u00a0UFW,\u00a0visas,\u00a0Working in America\"],\"articleSection\":[\"Working in America\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/frontierhousingreport.com\\\/?p=542#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/frontierhousingreport.com\\\/?p=542\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/frontierhousingreport.com\\\/?p=542\",\"name\":\"Top Farmworker Fear Is Family Separation - Frontier Housing Report\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/frontierhousingreport.com\\\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/frontierhousingreport.com\\\/?p=542#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/frontierhousingreport.com\\\/?p=542#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/frontierhousingreport.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/e596b0f25c7e76ce347cfa7ce731883c.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2026-07-31T15:14:04+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/frontierhousingreport.com\\\/#\\\/schema\\\/person\\\/13a8c63a4bd3b73600b541c1532fc247\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/frontierhousingreport.com\\\/?p=542#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\\\/\\\/frontierhousingreport.com\\\/?p=542\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/frontierhousingreport.com\\\/?p=542#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\\\/\\\/frontierhousingreport.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/e596b0f25c7e76ce347cfa7ce731883c.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\\\/\\\/frontierhousingreport.com\\\/wp-content\\\/uploads\\\/2026\\\/07\\\/e596b0f25c7e76ce347cfa7ce731883c.jpg\",\"width\":2000,\"height\":1500,\"caption\":\"FILE - A demonstrator kneels in front of federal agents in a farm field during an immigration raid in Camarillo, Calif., Thursday, July 10, 2025. 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