After six 12 hours of milking cows, José Molina-Aguilar’s only day was barely relaxed.
On April 21, he and seven colleagues were arrested Vermont What advocates call dairy farms is one of the largest immigration attacks in the state ever.
“I saw on the windows of the house that I saw the immigrants were already inside the farm, and that was when they detained us,” he said in a recent interview. “I was in the asylum process and even so, they didn’t respect the documents I still held in my hands.”
Four workers were quickly deported to Mexico. Molina-Aguilar, who is still under trial after a month at the Texas Detention Center, is now working on another farm and speaking out.
“We have to fight as a community so that all of us can have and fight for the rights we have in this country,” he said.
The owner of the target farm declined to comment. But Brett Stokes, a lawyer representing detained workers, said the raid sent shock waves across the Northeast agricultural industry.
“These powerful tactics we’re seeing and the increase in law enforcement, whether legal or not, play a role in fear in the community,” said Stokes, director of the Center for Justice Reform at Vermont Law and Graduate School of Law.
This fear remains, given the mixed message from the White House. President Donald Trump illegally expelled millions of promises to work in the United States last month Arrest suspension On farms, restaurants and hotels. But less than a week later, the Assistant Secretary of Homeland Security said that workplace enforcement will continue.
Such uncertainties are like Californiafarms produce more than three-quarters of the country’s fruits and more than one-third of the vegetables. But it also affected small countries like Vermont, where Vermont dairy is part of its famous maple syrup.
Nearly two-thirds of all milk production in New England comes from Vermont, where more than half of the state’s farmland is dedicated to dairy and dairy crops. According to the Vermont Bureau of Agriculture, Food and Markets, about 113,000 cows and 7,500 goats are distributed in 480 farms, which correlates the industry’s annual economic impact to $5.4 billion.
This impact has more than doubled over the past decade with the widespread help of immigration labor. More than 90% of the farms surveyed the agency’s recent reports employ migrant workers.
Among them is Wood Bernardo 2023 letters Signed by dozens of state lawmakers.
Hundreds of Bernardo supporters appeared at her recent check-in with immigration officials.
“It’s really hard because every time I come here, I don’t know if I’ll be back to my family,” she said after being told to return within a month.
Like Molina-Aguilar, Rossy Alfaro also takes 12 hours off a day a week at Vermont Farm. Now an advocate for immigration justice, she said the dairy industry will collapse without immigrant workers.
“Everything will go down,” she said. “There are a lot of people working for a long time without complaining and being unable to say, ‘I don’t want to work.’ They just do the job.”
