Last month, agricultural workers from throughout Yuma County gathered in San Luis in the early hours of the day for the annual Dia Del Campesino farmworker health and resources fair.
Before they boarded buses to take them to the fields and factories in Yuma County, I asked some of them about the incoming administration and Trump’s threat to implement mass deportations. Jesus Chaide, who lives in San Luis and works in the cauliflower fields, said that could impact the ag business in Yuma County.
“It’s bad," Chaide said. "(Trump) wants to take out people who don’t have papers (documents). Who would want to work here? Without us farmworkers, the people in the U.S. won’t be working in ag.”
Maria Ayala lives in Yuma and said she has been working in the fields here for 11 years.
“As long as we are legal workers, there will be no problem for us workers," Ayala said. "What Trump wants is that we are legal workers, in other words, that we are all legally allowed to work here.”
Data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 2022 estimates a little more than 40 percent of all crop farmworkers do not have legal immigration status, putting them at risk for deportation.
Ag leaders in Yuma County and Arizona are monitoring the situation but say they depend on legal H-2A workers from Mexico who legally cross every day to work here.
John Boelts is a Yuma County grower at Desert Premium Farms. He’s also the new president of the Arizona Farm Bureau. He recently visited the KAWC studios where we spoke about what impact any mass deportations could have on ag in Yuma and Arizona and how local growers depend on the H-2A program.
“We have a shortage of workers," Boelts said "We have a legal workforce… I don’t think there’s any industry that wouldn’t be negatively impacted by immigration sweeps."
Boelts said Yuma County has about 45,000 people working in ag during the peak months. This includes about 15,000 workers crossing the border every day and getting on a crew bus in San Luis or Mexicali, about 10,000 workers who come down from Salinas, Calif. following the ag season and more than 10,000 workers who live and work in Yuma County.
“To fill the gap, we increasingly rely on the H2A program," Boelts said. "It’s uncapped but expensive and challenging to work with... You have to provide housing and transportation. You have to prove there are no domestic workers available... There are about 8,000 people in the H2A program locally.”
That’s less than a quarter of all local farmworkers. The rest are either citizens, on some visa or undocumented.
But Yuma County Sheriff Leon Wilmot says he doesn’t see undocumented farmworkers as a priority.
Sheriff Wilmot said he and other border sheriffs met with Tom Homan, Trump's nominee for what he's calling his "border czar". He said any sweeps would first target migrants who have committed serious crimes including aggravated assault and sexual assault.
"I don't see that happening in Yuma County with neighborhood sweeps." Wilmot said. "It's more likely in large metropolitan areas where they would focus on transnational gang members... and they have other priorities."
Wilmot says he doesn’t see sweeps impacting the community, local workers or his resources in terms of officers or jail space.
At the city level, San Luis Police Chief Nigel Reynoso says he wants to work with federal partners but his priority is the trust of his community.
“Our goal is we want to continue working with our federal partners to make sure our community is safe but also to make sure we have a good relationship with our residents so they’re able to trust us," Chief Reynoso told KAWC. "It’s not like we’re going to be going door to door or just pulling people over because we think they may have come in illegally. We want to protect our citizens and maintain a good trust with the community so that will be our focus.”
Meanwhile, as NPR reported last week, unlike last year when a surge of migrants peaked, today, border crossings are down dramatically.
According to U.S. Customs Border Protection figures, in the last six months, apprehensions decreased by more than 70 percent. That's due to executive orders by President Joe Biden last summer and the Mexican National Guard cracking down on migrants heading to the U.S.
While it is unknown what specific actions Trump will take on border safety, officials in Arizona and Yuma County are keeping an eye on things.
On Wednesday, Governor Hobbs announced $17.2 million in funding from the Stopping Arizona’s Fentanyl Epidemic, or SAFE, initiative "to support local law enforcement’s border security work, drug interdiction efforts and combatting human trafficking."
Justin De La Torre, the new Yuma Sector U.S. Border Patrol Chief, tells KAWC a new administration will bring a change in policy.
"Any time there's an administration change, you're going to have changes in policies," De La Torre said. "With this (Trump) administration, we do anticipate changes to our priorities. What that is, I don't know right now so we'll have to wait and see."
Currently, the Yuma Sector is fairly quiet, especially compared to two years ago. The chief says agents are apprehending about 40 migrants a day, down from as many as 1,000 people a day at the peak.
Arizona's two Democratic U.S. Senators made headlines earlier this month when Sen. Ruben Gallego announced he was co-sponsoring the Laken Riley Act, which would allow people in the country illegally who have committed minor crimes to be deported. Gallego said he supports the bill, named for a Georgia woman killed by a migrant in the country illegally, because law enforcement needs all the tools available to handle a potential influx.
Sen. Mark Kelly told KAWC he was supporting the bill.
"The president-elect wants to remove dangerous criminals," Kelly said. "We should do that. I'm willing to work with him on that. (But) I think the mass deportation thing is a bad idea and is not consistent with our values."
In general, everyone I spoke with is adopting a wait and see approach to the possibility of mass deportations. But with Trump promising action on Day One, they may not have long to wait.
