“Today I experienced just a small taste of the demanding work that farmworkers do every day to keep millions of families in America fed,” said Senator Padilla.
Someone forgot to educate U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins about the skills and strong work ethic of immigrants—qualities that farmers rely on to plant, grow, and harvest the food that feeds the nation.
Just days after President Donald Trump indicated he was open to allowing farmers “to vouch for these people” in order to keep their undocumented workers—mostly from Mexico—from being deported, Rollins poured cold water on the idea on Tuesday.
“There will be no amnesty. The mass deportations will continue, but in a strategic way,” Rollins said during a Tuesday press conference in Washington, D.C. “And we will move the workforce toward automation and 100% American participation. With 34 million able-bodied people on Medicaid, we should be able to do this fairly quickly.”
Putting Medicaid recipients in charge of picking grapes or milking cows would cripple the country’s $543 billion agricultural industry—California alone accounts for about $59 billion of that.
Rollins has no idea about the hard work done by farmworkers. I doubt she’s ever planted a single vegetable or spent hours on her knees picking crops in the fields. If she thinks Americans will do that work… good luck.
In 2021, the United Farm Workers (UFW) launched the “Take Our Jobs” campaign, offering to match unemployed individuals with farm jobs near their homes. More than four million people visited the campaign’s dedicated website. Only 11 people responded.
One person who did give it a try was Senator Alex Padilla.
With immigration reform stalled in Congress—particularly in the Senate due to the filibuster rule—professional farmworkers in 2021 invited all 100 U.S. senators to spend a day working in the fields before making decisions on immigration reform.
At a vegetable company under UFW contract in Moorpark, Senator Padilla harvested radishes and parsley.
“Today I experienced just a small taste of the demanding work that farmworkers do every day to keep millions of families in America fed,” said Senator Padilla. “I was here for just one day, but the people I worked alongside are here every day, toiling—often under the hot sun—to ensure that there’s food in our stores and on our tables. Farmworkers are essential to our country’s success. That’s why I’m fighting to fix our immigration system and to provide immigrant farmworkers the pathway to citizenship they have earned.”
The “Take Our Jobs” campaign originally launched in 2010, with more than four million Americans visiting the union’s website. During the Great Recession, the UFW offered to connect unemployed individuals with agricultural jobs near their homes anywhere in the U.S. Of the four million visitors, only 11 agreed to take jobs in the fields.
Comedian and now Late Show host Stephen Colbert featured “Take Our Jobs” in three segments on his Comedy Central show and even spent a day working in the fields himself.
The UFW has expressed its stance on the pressure imposed by the Trump administration and the raids carried out in recent days.
“UFW support workers taking action, but we are not involved and were not aware about these posts before they went up. Effective strikes take enormous organization and energy— all power to workers who take action to improve their lives as they see fit.”
