SUMAS, Wash. – Saturday is Workers' Memorial Day, a commemoration of people who've lost their lives on the job. In Washington state, the farm community is remembering Ernesto Silva Ibarra, a 28-year-old farmworker who became ill last summer while picking berries during wildfires and later died.

The Washington State Department of Labor and Industries fined Sarbanand Farms, where Ibarra worked, for two infractions after the incident – not providing timely meals and rest breaks to workers. However, Edgar Franks, civic engagement coordinator with the group Community to Community Development, thinks the investigation should be reopened – for Ibarra and other farmworkers.

"They're in a precarious position and put in a position where they can't defend themselves, and if they do defend themselves, they get threatened,” says Franks. “So, this is why we're asking for L&I to reopen the case. We want justice for Ernesto and the hundreds of other farmworkers that were sick."

He says other workers also became ill during wildfires last year. Sarbanand was scheduled to dispute the fines in court this week, but the case has been delayed until May 23rd. L&I fined the company nearly $150,000, but the agency did not find Sarbanand responsible for Ibarra's death.

After Ibarra's death, about 70 workers at Sarbanand went on strike and were fired. Like Ibarra, the laborers were in the country on guest worker or H2A visas.

Franks sees that visa program as exploiting workers, affording them few rights and no ability to unionize. He says it's compounded by the inherent danger in agricultural work.

"When people come to work, they expect to go back and be with their families,” says Franks. “So, that's why we still fight for justice for Ernesto Silva and the many other farmworkers."

Farm work was the second-most deadly occupation in the country in 2016, the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.


get more stories like this via email

President-elect Donald Trump is expected to confirm his choice of South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to head the Department of Homeland Security and immigration advocates across the country are preparing for their agenda at the border.

Gov. Noem has spoken to the state legislature about what she called an "invasion" of "Mexican drug cartels," and was banned from all nine reservations in South Dakota after saying tribes were "personally benefiting" from them. She also appeared on the campaign trail with Trump, who has promised to deport millions of people.

Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, said the big question is whether Congress will support the Trump administration's goals.

"Mass deportations are enormously expensive," Reichlin-Melnick pointed out. "Without tens of billions of dollars of additional funding from Congress, it remains to be seen whether any of the deportation plans we've seen the incoming administration roll out are actually feasible."

During the last Trump presidency, the department saw five different confirmed and acting secretaries. Reichlin-Melnick noted Trump's team will be paying close attention to the department.

As secretary, Noem would be in charge of Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Customs and Border Protection. Reichlin-Melnick pointed out there are significant bottlenecks in the process, which could slow down mass deportation efforts, including 3.7 million pending cases in immigration courts.

"Realistically speaking, the immigration enforcement apparatus is massive and cannot be rapidly turned around overnight," Reichlin-Melnick observed. "An immigrant who's arrested on January 21st may not even see a judge to face deportation for years."

He added another potential bottleneck is Trump's appointments of Stephen Miller as his deputy chief of staff and Tom Homan as what has been dubbed a "border czar." Reichlin-Melnick emphasized the two have expressed differing opinions on mass deportations.


get more stories like this via email

As the dust settles from the 2024 election, immigrant New Yorkers fear how Donald Trump's second term will impact them.

Many still recall the separation of families during his first term, and fears they could be deported at any time.

Theo Oshiro, co-executive director of Make the Road New York, said those fears have returned since Trump is promising mass deportations of undocumented immigrants starting on day one.

"Not only are we talking about the threat of deportation, which is of course top of mind and the top fear of many of our people," said Oshiro, "but actual just physical violence on the street that really was something that had increased, in our experience, during the Trump administration."

He adds the organization held legal clinics during Trump's first term in office so immigrants could assign guardianship of their kids if they were suddenly deported.

This comes as a judge ruled the Biden administration's Keeping Families Together program is illegal, putting 20,000 New York families at risk of separation.

Trump's mass-deportation plan could cost up to $1.7 billion over a decade, and have vaster impacts than the Great Recession.

With Inauguration Day a few months away, Oshiro said he feels the state must enact common-sense protections for immigrants.

These range from health-care coverage for immigrants to whether local agencies collaborate with immigration enforcement agencies.

While there might be challenges to implement them, he said it's cost-effective to do so.

"In the example of health care, we know it's actually too expensive for our state to not care for immigrant communities," said Oshiro. "That actually impacts our state in negative ways. So we know that these common-sense solutions are the right thing to do but they're also fiscally responsible."

Estimates show New York State is planning to spend more than $4 billion between 2022 and 2026 in emergency spending on migrants. Current spending is estimated at around $690 million.

But, the New York City Comptroller's office estimates passing coverage for all will generate $710 million in annual benefits.




get more stories like this via email

New Mexico has a sizable immigrant community - making up 11% of the state's labor force.

But during contentious U.S. elections, they can suffer a sort of collective discrimination by those worried about migrant crime.

Jonathan Salazar, research and policy analyst with New Mexico Voices for Children, says almost 200,000 immigrants live in New Mexico.

And they're not just neighbors and workers, but often employ others to grow the state's economy by operating storefront shops.

"Particularly in New Mexico, so many of them are immigrant-owned," said Salazar, "and I think it's important to also discuss the vibrancy, the culture that so many immigrants contribute to the state and to people's daily lives."

It's illegal for non-citizens to vote in U.S. elections, but it's nonetheless a central topic of this year's election.

On Friday, two of Georgia's top election officials, both Republicans, called out a social media video purporting to show Haitian migrants voting as fake and an "obvious lie."

Polls in New Mexico are open tomorrow from 7 a.m. until 7 p.m. - and in-person same-day registration is allowed.

New Mexico immigrants, primarily from Mexico, account for 31% of the state's college professors and more than 20% of restaurant cooks.

They also make up 15% of entrepreneurs and 22% of the state's construction workforce.

Salazar said many take jobs in the oil and gas industry - where younger workers will be critical to avoid labor shortages as older workers leave the work force.

"So many of them take harsh jobs, harsh conditions in our oil and gas companies which provides revenues for our state," said Salazar, "and that's money that goes into that funding for things like education."

New Mexico is the nation's second-largest crude oil-producing state, after Texas, contributing 14% of total U.S. crude oil production.

A study commissioned by New Mexico Voices for Children found immigrant workers and business owners generate $12 billion of the state's economic output.