Thanksgiving is a time of gratitude and family, but it should also be a time of reflection and honoring the immigrant hands—both documented and undocumented—that helped make our meals possible. “Although immigrants may not be physical guests,” immigration reporter Esther Lee writes, “they are present in the contribution that they made in getting those dishes to the table”:
The National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) estimates that about 48 percent of agricultural workers are unauthorized immigrants. Other farmworkers could be on seasonable agricultural visas known as H-2A or H-2B visas. Meanwhile, about 38 percent of meat-processing and slaughterhouse workers are born outside the U.S.
According to estimates, more than 70 percent of farm workers currently in the U.S. are immigrants, and in addition to processing the poultry that will end up on our tables, they labor in dairy farms, orchards, and fields harvesting vegetables like potatoes and green beans. This is not only intensive labor, it can also be incredibly harmful:
“Many farm workers are exposed to pesticides and chemical sprays and often suffer health consequences as a result. An estimated 5.1 billion pounds of pesticides are used in the United States annually. There are anywhere between 1,800 and 3,000 occupational incidents involving pesticides every year, though the number is likely even higher due to widespread underreporting.”
Immigrant labor, regardless of legal status, is the symbolic and physical backbone of various American industries, and if you believe in workers’ rights, then you believe in immigrant rights. But instead of fighting for full labor protections for immigrant farm workers, the Trump administration has sought to demonize them.
As immigrant rights group America’s Voice noted last year, early-2010s legislation written by Trump official Kris Kobach in Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III’s home state has already offered “a window into the failed policies promoted by hardline anti-immigrant advocates”:
In 2011, the state passed HB 56, a harsh law written by Kobach, that, like so many of his other efforts, was later found unconstitutional. However, before the law was struck down, it wreaked havoc on Alabama’s agricultural industry. In October of 2011, The Guardian reported, “Alabama immigration: crops rot as workers vanish to avoid crackdown”:
‘Brian Cash can put a figure to the cost of Alabama’s new immigration law: at least $100,000. That’s the value of the tomatoes he has personally ripening out in his fields and that are going unpicked because his Hispanic workforce vanished literally overnight.’
According to the National Farm Worker Ministry, a faith-based group inspired by the work of late labor leader and United Farm Workers co-founder César Chávez, “85 percent of fruits and vegetables produced in the US are picked by farm workers by hand.” But while “the average farm worker makes only $11,000 per year … the fruit and vegetable industry generates an estimated $28 billion per year”:
Farm workers are one of the most highly at risk social groups in our country. They make low wages, work long hours in dangerous conditions, lack access to unions and proper healthcare, and many are undocumented. And yet, we depend on their risky work all of the time. Perhaps we need to take a closer look at who exactly is behind the platter this Thanksgiving.
“When you give thanks,” said America’s Voice’s Frank Sharry, “be sure to include those who, through their hard and often back-breaking work, helped make the meal possible.” We can also support and honor the dignity of immigrant farm workers by pushing for the Agricultural Worker Program Act of 2017 and ensuring they get the rights they deserve.