The Precarious Nature of Vermont’s Dairy Industry
How recent immigration policy has ignited new fears throughout Vermont’s agricultural labor force, and what it means for the state’s most prosperous industry
On Friday afternoon (Mar. 17), Enrique Balcazar, 24 and Zully Palacios, 23, were arrested and detained by immigration officials during a traffic stop on Shelburne Road in Burlington, VT. Neither Balcazar nor Palacios, from Mexico and Peru respectively, possessed any criminal record, and were taken away in separate ICE vehicles to a holding facility.
Balcazar and Palacios are both activists for Migrant Justice, an advocacy group dedicated to building “the voice, capacity and power of the farmworker community” throughout the state of Vermont. They meet to discuss problems afflicting migrant workers — discrimination, poor quality housing, harmful working conditions, restricted access to transportation and health care — and work with community partners to envision solutions that ensure economic justice and protect basic human rights.
The group was formed in 2009 after 20-year-old migrant worker, José Obeth Santiz Cruz from Las Margaritas, Chiapas, Mexico, was tragically killed in a farming accident at Howrigan dairy farm in Fairfield, Vermont. “He went to Vermont with dreams and hopes to help his family and came back in a box,” said Elida, Santiz Cruz’s sister.
Elida’s detailed description of her brother’s journey from Mexico to Vermont — a twenty-day trek across the desert without much food, arriving in Vermont much frailer than when he left, a difficult six-month period until he could find a job — exhibits the inconceivable human struggle inherent to most immigrant experiences. Unable to support themselves and their families at home without additional outside income, the perilous journey undergone by people like José are necessary if they want a chance at a better life.
Balcazar, who currently works as a prominent organizer and spokesman for Migrant Justice and is a regular at protests and rallies, is no stranger to this strife. He left Tabasco, Mexico when he was seventeen to milk cows in Vermont, work that was “grueling,” “isolating,” and produced meager pay. He hoped to generate enough income to allow him to go back to school and help support his younger brother back home.
The detainment of Balcazar and Palacios marked two of three ICE arrests in Vermont within three days. On Wednesday, March 15th, 23-year-old dairy worker Cesar Alex Carrillo was detained outside a Burlington courthouse. A fellow Migrant Justice organizer, Carrillo had arrived in Burlington to attend a hearing for his recent misdemeanor DUI charge, and instead was detained as he looked for parking. Married to a U.S. citizen who is pregnant with their second child, Carrillo now faces possible deportation and separation from his family.
Although these recent arrests are not a direct result of President Trump’s executive orders on immigration issued back in January, the outrage they have evoked — a number of protests in multiple towns throughout the state of Vermont, some drawing hundreds of people—echoes the callous anti-immigrant sentiment ingrained in the new laws.
Throughout his presidential campaign, Trump vehemently promised to deport the 11 million undocumented immigrants living in the United States, incorrectly citing them as “rapists,” “criminals,” “drug dealers,” and generally “unwanted.” Not long after taking office, he ordered the immediate construction of a border wall with Mexico, pledged to hold back money from “sanctuary cities,” and expanded the definition of a “criminal,” and therefore, who is considered a priority for deportation.
Those vulnerable to expulsion could be anyone charged with a criminal offense, even if they are not convicted; anyone authorities believe may have broken a law, even if they have not been charged with a crime; and anyone an immigration officer judges to be a risk to public or national security.
In allowing for the deportation of far more unauthorized immigrants than any previous administration, this broadened definition of criminality discredits Trump’s repeated clarification that he will mainly focus on expelling those who “pose a threat” to public safety. Instead, these recent orders are designed to deport more people than ever before by justifying the notion that most undocumented immigrants are inherently dangerous — an assumption repeatedly shown to be false — just because they are undocumented. The fate of undocumented people becomes relegated to the sole belief they are a danger, regardless of whether or not such a belief is grounded in verifiable fact.
Under recent executive orders, simply being undocumented or being an immigrant is a damning characterization which lawfully supersedes the presence of any demonstrable evidence.
These anti-immigrant measures have provoked an especially fearful climate for both workers and farm owners throughout Vermont, a state which has come to rely heavily on immigrant labor to sustain its highly-profitable dairy industry.
In 2014, the Vermont Dairy Promotion Council conducted a report called “Milk Matters: The Role of Dairy in Vermont,” which assesses the overall economic impact of the industry. Findings show that Vermont has about 868 dairy farms and 134,132 cows, with roughly 80% of the state’s total farmland “devoted to dairy and crops for dairy feed.” About 321.25 million gallons of Vermont milk are sold every year, accounting for more than half of all the milk that New England produces. Comprising 70% of the state’s total agricultural sales, Vermont’s dairy generates $2.2 billion in economic activity each year, including $1.3 billion in annual sales, and $3 million in circulating cash each day — data that overwhelmingly supports that dairy farms and by extension, their workers, are more integral to Vermont’s economic sustenance than ever.
According to Migrant Justice, between 1,200 and 1,500 migrant farmworkers work on Vermont’s 995 dairy farms for 60–80 hours per week. More than one-third of laborers come from the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, like José Obeth Santiz. Most are young, single men. 40% receive less than the standard Vermont minimum wage (undocumented Vermonters pay, in total, almost $4 million a year in state and local taxes, contributing slightly more than the top 1% of Americans), 40% never have a day off, and 10% have children living in the United States.
The number of immigrant workers employed on Vermont dairy farms has steadily risen since the mid- to late 1990s, coinciding with the domestic workforce’s waning interest in harsh agricultural labor. According to John Roberts, the former owner of an organic dairy farm in Cornwall, once potential employees “realized what working on a dairy farm meant…local people just didn’t want to do the job.”
With so few Americans ready and willing to partake in such grueling work — long hours, low wages, working in punishing weather conditions — the influx of foreign workers that began moving north in the early 2000s provided a solution to the labor shortage crisis. It also hindered a potentially catastrophic blow to the state’s dairy industry and the iconic brands they maintain, such as Ben & Jerry’s and Cabot Cheese.
In light of the increasingly hostile national stance toward America’s immigrants, combined with Vermont’s dependency on migrant labor, it is of no surprise that each publicized detainment—such as that of Balcazar, Palacios, and Santiz Cruz — exacerbates the new fear that has enveloped much of Vermont’s immigrant farmworker community. According to Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., because the executive order “seems to make most of the undocumented workers on Vermont farms…targets for enforcement action,” many immigrants have actively chosen to be more cautious in their daily lives. Balcazar relates:
“There are a lot of families who have stopped going about their day-to-day business because of the fear that they feel — have stopped going to the grocery store or stopped going to school. Families have begun making emergency plans about assigning custody to somebody else if they were to be arrested and deported."
With the Trump administration ramping up deportations (hundreds of arrests were made in at least six states across the U.S. within one week in February), another alarming result is the refusal of more and more immigrants to testify in court causes, fearful that they will be immediately detained in a similar manner to Alex Carrillo in Burlington.
Striving to avoid any encounter with law enforcement at all costs, immigrants who have grown increasingly wary of the U.S. court system have even refused to report crimes. Recently, four undocumented women in Denver, CO — alleged victims of violent, physical assault — declined to pursue their domestic-abuse cases out of fear they would be detained and deported by ICE upon entering a courtroom. As a result, the cases were dropped, and their violent offenders walked free without consequence.
Although ICE made arrests at courthouses during the Obama administration, Trump’s redefinition of what it means to be a “criminal” has caused an extremely high degree of anxiety in terms of an immigrant’s right to exist in public spaces. Places like courthouses, where people should feel safe, no longer are, and can now subject more people than ever to potential deportation. For immigrants, the decisions of our government result in less going out in public, more living in the shadows, and more distrust in the country they rely on for survival.
The state of Vermont has assumed a stance of opposition against Trump’s executive order and the implications it could have on the dairy industry and its workers. State officials, such as Democratic Attorney General T.J. Donovan, have adamantly maintained “Vermont will not be complacent, nor will Vermont be complicit in this federal overreach.”
Currently, there are discussions throughout the Vermont General Assembly surrounding new legislation, S.79, which limits cooperation between local law enforcement and federal immigration officials and protects an individual’s right to withhold personal information. The major obstacle to introducing new state-wide protections remains organizations such as ICE, whose newly empowered enforcement of immigration laws State Rep. Peter Conlon warns is “surprisingly powerful,” with their presence often popping up unexpectedly.
Nevertheless, dairy farm owners, in coordination with the state, have scrambled to discuss emergency measures in case they do find themselves in the devastating situation where their workforces suddenly vanish, be it through governmental force or driven by their own fears. One proposed idea is to utilize a prison work relief program as a short-term solution, with a more long-term option being a vocational training program for inmates.
Farmers in Vermont, like one in Addison County, have made it clear that the heightened atmosphere of uncertainty plaguing them and their workers, which consequently casts a shadow on the future of the dairy industry, stems beyond mere economic concerns:
“It’s not a situation I would ever look forward to, not just because of the business, but personally what these guys lay out on the line every day. The struggles they go through — to harass them needlessly…for the most part, they just want to earn some money and send it home.”
Inarguably, the human bonds between farmers and workers have only been reinforced under the looming threat of deportation, with both groups increasingly looking toward their state representatives, communities, and advocacy groups such as Migrant Justice for solidarity and action.
Another farmer laments:
“The people I know are wonderful people. They care about their jobs. We trust them with our animals, for God’s sake. This is everything for us. This is our livelihood.”
***UPDATE 3/28/17, from Migrant Justice: “After over ten long days in jail for no crime but speaking up for human rights, Migrant Justice leaders Enrique and Zully were released on Tuesday, after a federal Immigration Judge in Boston granted bail in both cases. In a cruel and unexpected twist, Alex was ordered to remain in jail without bond, even though the only criminal charges against him were dismissed. This decision risks keeping Alex away from his wife and four-year-old daughter, who are U.S. citizens, for an extended period of time while he pursues immigration relief.”
Enrique and Zully were presented with the César Chávez Human and Civil Rights Award by the National Education Association, the nation’s largest union.
Sign the Migrant Justice petition to “#FreeAlex” here.
