Ask Joe

In using immigration to target Farm and food chain workers, as well as other essential industries like carework, cleaning, and food chains, our federal government is committing us to a food system in danger.

A food system where Farmworkers, meat packers, and other food chain workers are threatened with violence is not a system that will keep families healthy and fed. It is not a system that the soils and waterways of our planet can sustain, and it is not a system that will support us in surviving climate change. We each have a role to take in moving toward a food system free of exploitation.

The threat of immigration enforcement, which has always been hand in hand with racism, makes all workers vulnerable. This form of abuse from employers, landlords, and law enforcement is used to threaten and remove workers who organize against their exploitation. This is true even in places like Washington State, where laws like the Keep Washington Working Act which prohibits local law enforcement agencies from giving any non public information to Federal Immigration officers for the purpose of civil immigration enforcement , and the recently passed HB 2165 banning mask use by law enforcement offer some kind of protection.