To really understand the legacy of racism and exploitation in the U.S. Agricultural industry, we need to go back to the Fair Labor Standards Act, which became law nearly a century ago, when Franklin D. Roosevelt was president.
This law fundamentally changed working conditions in the U.S., it gave us a minimum wage, a 40-hour work week, overtime pay –you know, the good stuff.
But these benefits didn’t apply to farmworkers, who at the time in the South were overwhelmingly Black.
In fact, you can draw a straight line from slavery, to the Fair Labor Standards Act, to the conditions we continue to see in agriculture today. Nearly a century later, farmworkers across the U.S., mostly Latino immigrants now, are still denied even the most basic federal protections, such as water breaks or access to shade in extreme heat. For many families, the effects of these racist exclusions are real, they’re tangible.
At the Summit of the Americas in Los Angeles last year, President Joe Biden outlined his plan to reduce the number of migrants seeking asylum at the Southern border. His administration, Biden said, would help “American farmers bring in seasonal agricultural workers from Northern Central American countries under the H-2A visa program.”
What does that mean for a program that’s already plagued with wage theft and abuse?
Since Biden took office in January of 2021, he’s turned “safe and orderly migration” into a kind of mantra. He says it all the time. And just in February of that year, 2021, the White House assembled working groups to discuss the H-2A program. The idea is to divert asylum seekers from the Southern border and into this program. Here’s Biden talking about the plan last summer:
President Biden: “And on this jobs front, our Department of Agriculture is launching a pilot program to help American farmers bring in seasonal agricultural workers from Northern Central America countries under the H-2A visa program. To improve conditions for all workers.”
Here’s the main issue with that. The Biden Administration wants to offer this temporary worker program to migrants who are seeking asylum at our Southern border. A program that is riddled with abuse and trafficking is being offered to people who are fleeing violence and trafficking.
“They’re only gonna be able to stay in the United States for 6, 7, 8 months outta the year. What happens during those other months of the year? Uh, they have to go back to their home country and they’re gonna be going back to a country that they fled.
Maybe because they were being persecuted, somebody in their family was murdered, you know, you’re gonna send them back to that situation and you’re gonna send them back to that situation with dollars in their pockets, which I think is just gonna make them targets for extortion.”
• Part 1, https://play.stitcher.com/episode/302009156
• Part 2, https://play.stitcher.com/episode/302310113
