In reminder of just how much the nation’s economic engine depends on immigrants, the dairy industry is warning consumers that Donald Trump’s mass deportation dragnet could cause the price of milk to soar to $8 a gallon:
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the current average price of a gallon of milk is about $3.31. The price of milk has actually remained pretty steady for the last decade, but that could change if the new president allows his immigration crackdown to extend to dairy farms.
The last dairy farm raid that made headlines took place in 2013 in Michigan and was part of a larger investigation into a couple who allegedly conspired “to transport, conceal, harbor and shield from detection undocumented immigrants to obtain their services for financial gain.”
But factories, restaurants, and farms are fairly regular targets of immigration raids. In February, 55 undocumented workers were arrested during a series of raids at Chinese restaurants in Mississippi. One of the largest workplace raids took place in 2008 at an Iowa meat processing plant. There, 389 immigrants were detained, the Bush administration’s largest roundup of undocumented workers at a single site, the Washington Post reported at the time.
“We need to continue to demonstrate to the federal government, to demonstrate to the Trump administration, that we are continuing the fight, to make sure that farmworkers, that immigrants are protected in this nation,” said Arturo Rodriguez, president of the United Farm Workers.
According to a study from Texas A&M University, “about 79 percent of the nation’s milk supply comes from dairy farms that employ immigrants.” Across all farms, 71 percent of workers are immigrants, and 48 percent are undocumented.
Regardless of their immigration status, immigrants are this industry’s life force, a fact too often disregarded by most consumers. Now that the possibility of losing the immigrant population is real, all Americans—particularly lower-income families—are at risk of feeling the pain.