Immigration Perspectives: COVID-19 Edition, Week 5

This week, America came to much better understand the complicated system of farmers, processors, and transportation that brings their food to the table and how hard it is for that system to quickly adjust to our new COVID reality. While farmers have for decades complained about the challenges of finding sufficient workers to pick crops and the agricultural sector in the United States has relied heavily on both undocumented and legal immigrant workers, the recent announcement of border closures, social distancing, and stay-at-home orders added concern that there would not be enough workers to bring in this year’s harvest. In response, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and the Department of Agriculture last week announced new policies for farmers who have filed applications for H-2A workers who may not be able to enter due to border restrictions. The measures allow these farmers to hire other H-2A workers already in the country and allow those workers to extend their usual 3-year stay. Earlier, the Department of Homeland Security had announced that agricultural workers would be considered “essential” for purposes of the U.S.-Mexico border crossing restrictions.

However, these measures only address some of the challenges facing the food sector Farmers are concerned about the health of their workforce since any outbreak can quickly shut down operations. For instance, Smithfield had to close several of its meat and poultry processing plants due to a surge in coronavirus cases and Tysons Food had two workers die from the virus. Meanwhile, some farmers are worried that without all the institutional purchases of restaurants, schools, and cafeterias, much of the recently harvested produce will be wasted, putting farmers, particularly smaller farmers in significant financial peril. Meanwhile, advocates are asking immigrants to be treated as emergency workers and provided additional protective gear. All of these stories point out not just the fragility and importance of our agricultural and food sector, but the importance of immigrants to put food on America’s tables.

This week reports emerged that Immigration and Customs Enforcement has released over 700 migrants from its detention facilities across the United States as the reports of outbreaks of the disease at facilities have multiplied and are now reported at close to 90 individuals. And the overall number of detainees in the ICE system has declined to around 32,000 which is a low for the Trump administration. However, some analysts believe the decline is due to fewer arrests, rather than the release of migrants. Advocates continue to push for release of all at-risk immigrants from detention, with multiple organizations filing lawsuits demanding release, and migrants themselves are launching protests and sending videos pleading for release. Meanwhile, a judge in one of the suits have demanded that ICE provide data on the number of cases of COVID-19 in detention centers operated by contractors. Conditions in ICE detention and the inadequacy of medical care have been the subject of numerous governmental watchdog reports, including from the Government Accountability Office and DHS’s own inspector general. While many believe that calls to abolish ICE go too far, the current pandemic has shone another spotlight on the challenges of operating such a vast non-criminal detention network with so little oversight.

The border restrictions negotiated between the United States and Canada last month are set to expire this week, but it seems there is some difference of opinion between the nations as to whether or not now is the time to reopen for non-essential travel. Between 200,000 and 300,000 people cross the U.S.-Canada border every day in normal times. But the closures have resulted in a sharp drop in travel of between 70 and 80% just at the Buffalo, NY/Fort Erie, ON crossings alone. The Trump administration has been looking to reopen the Canadian border for business as soon as possible, but that overture was rebuffed this week by Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who said during a press conference that the border is not likely to reopen soon. The initial closure was instigated by Canada, when the Canadian government first started extreme measures to contain the coronavirus, but after the United States announced travel bans from Europe. Initially the Trudeau government was against the idea, but changed course after health officials, particularly those from British Columbia who are worried about spread of the disease from visitors from neighboring Washington state. The importance of trade across the border to Canada and the United States means that both countries will need to carefully negotiate these differences since resumption of trade and travel will be key to economic recovery both for Canada and many U.S. communities along the border.

In the last COVID-19 Weekly we noted that California Gov. Gavin Newsom was considering launching a relief fund for undocumented immigrants. This week, Newsom announced that a $125 million “Disaster Relief Fund” would be created, with $75 million coming from state coffers and another $50 million from philanthropic donations. The fund will be available to undocumented immigrants ineligible for federal unemployment or federal disaster relief under the CARES Act, due to their immigration status. The funds will be administered via community-based immigrant serving organizations across the state.