Fear of Deportation Empties California’s Farm Fields, Upending Lives, Threatening U.S. Food Prices

SACRAMENTO, the United States, Jan. 23 (Xinhua) — Fear of deportation has led to a sharp drop in farm worker attendance across California’s agricultural heartland, leaving crops unharvested following U.S. President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, local news outlets have reported.

In Bakersfield, located in Kern County, California, residents reported sightings of U.S. Border Patrol agents in unmarked Chevrolet Suburbans allegedly targeting field workers.

Sara Fuentes, a manager at a local gas station, told the California non-profit news site CalMatters that plainclothes agents detained individuals outside her store and only stopped those who “looked like they worked in the fields.”

Fuentes added that a typical morning rush of farm workers buying breakfast never materialized that day — an indication that fear kept them away from work.