There have been immigrant families in rural Wisconsin much longer the national news would have you think.
Growing up, many immigrants in our area worked at a factory down the road, and on farms all around us that needed a hand – many of them not much bigger than our own.
Today the presence of immigrants from Mexico and Latin America on U.S. farms is tied up in one of our biggest political controversies — but also one of our biggest economic dilemmas. About half of U.S. farm labor is made up of immigrants with unclear legal status, picking our produce, milking our cows, and more while America debates President Trump’s ICE raids, the fate of Kilmar Abrego Garcia, and “No Kings” protests across the country.
Only Washington could create a quagmire like this. I see the left accusing the right of heartlessly casting aside immigrants who came here for a better life, while the right accuses the left of not caring about any of the consequences of those coming here illegally (be it the labor market, crime, costs to taxpayers, sovereignty, or other issues).
Meantime there’s a debate on the right around President Trump’s brief pause of deportations on farms, with some wanting him to ensure deportations focus on criminals and other clearer problems, and others feeling the pause undermined his broader policy.
Farmers are meantime caught in cross-cutting political winds: Many in rural areas support the goal of securing our border, while also seeing how immigrant labor powers American agriculture. And that central issue — of how to ensure our farms and food supply aren’t paralyzed by lack of labor, or forced into higher costs that wipe out farms and drive up the price of food — is one that affects us all.
5 ways we can fix the immigration crisis
No surprise here, but Washington’s inability to solve this issue doesn’t mean there aren’t solutions. Here are five:
Some of these solutions are long term, and some are short term. But all of them center on making it easier for farms to survive, and making Washington fix a mess.
Those are things that have been in far too short supply, for far too long.
Brian Reisinger is an award-winning writer who grew up on a family farm in Sauk County. He contributes columns and videos for the Ideas Lab at the Journal Sentinel, and is the author of “Land Rich, Cash Poor: My Family’s Hope and the Untold History of the Disappearing American Farmer.” Reisinger works in public affairs consulting for Wisconsin-based Platform Communications. He splits his time between Sacramento, Calif. — America’s “farm-to-fork capital,” near his wife’s family — and the family farm in Wisconsin. You can reach him online at brian-reisinger.com
This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Farmers forgotten as debate over ICE raids, Dodgers and No Kings protests rage | Opinion
Reporting by Brian Reisinger / Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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