{"id":267,"date":"2025-10-06T15:54:17","date_gmt":"2025-10-06T19:54:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/?p=267"},"modified":"2025-11-07T15:43:21","modified_gmt":"2025-11-07T20:43:21","slug":"nj-farms-suffer-as-ice-raids-intensify","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/commons.princeton.edu\/migration-reporting2025\/nj-farms-suffer-as-ice-raids-intensify\/","title":{"rendered":"NJ farms suffer as ICE raids intensify"},"content":{"rendered":"

Immigration enforcement efforts are escalating dramatically in New Jersey, disrupting farming operations and leaving crops to rot. Fearing immigration-related arrests, farmworkers are failing to report for work, causing a labor shortage which NJ farmers say could lead to farm closures and higher prices for produce.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve seen people losing their jobs because the farm owners don\u2019t want to be involved, migrant labor is becoming a high cost to the farms. And the workers are afraid to drive to work because they\u2019re stopped in their cars by ICE,\u201d said Katherin Zepeda, a representative from CATA (El Comit\u00e9 de Apoyo a Los Trabajadores Agricolos, or, \u201cThe Farmworker Support Committee\u201d), a New Jersey farmers\u2019 association focused on Latino immigrant farmworkers. \u201cLocal farms and family farms are struggling and suffering, and they will close. It\u2019s a lot of fear on every side.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

New Jersey\u2019s farmers are not alone in their concerns. In major agricultural states including California, Pennsylvania, and New York, farmers are expressing similar hiring struggles. \u201cNew York\u2019s small farms are beginning to feel the strain of immigration enforcement under the Trump administration,\u201d <\/span>Newsweek <\/span><\/i>reported in September.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The farming industry is reliant on foreign-born populations both state-wide and on a national scale. According to the USDA, 42% of U.S. crop workers are undocumented migrants. In New Jersey specifically, CATA estimates that up to 70% of farmworkers lack legal status. With the suspension of the 2024 Farmworker Protection Rule in June\u2013\u2013 a Biden-era policy which expanded protections for migrant farmworkers on H-2A temporary visas\u2013\u2013\u00a0and the Trump administration\u2019s aggressive use of ICE for immigration-relatred arrests, farmers in New Jersey are beginning to raise concerns over labor shortages and operating costs.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Since Trump\u2019s inauguration, ICE has been racing to meet new White House arrest quotas for immigration violations nationwide, bolstered by a massive increase in funding through the \u201cBig Beautiful Bill\u201d signed into law on July 4th. While attorneys from the Trump administration denied the implementation of daily arrest quotas, White House deputy chief of staff Stephen Miller said on Fox News in May that ICE would set a goal of a \u201cminimum\u201d of 3,000 arrests a day\u2013\u2013\u00a010 times the number of daily arrests under the Biden administration. In states with high migrant populations, the ICE crackdown has typically been more severe. In the first six months of Trump\u2019s presidency, arrests doubled in California and tripled in Florida, according to a June report by the New York Times.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

While New Jersey, which has the fifth-highest immigrant population in the nation, has not faced quite as dramatic an escalation in arrests, average daily ICE arrests in the state are already up by 73% from 2024, according to the New York Times\u2019 research. The surge in arrests has had a destabilizing effect on migrant communities.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe tone for immigration arrests has definitely worsened in New Jersey, and our communities are scared,\u201d said Hollis Painting, a representative of Catholic Charities\u2019 \u201cEl Centro\u201d organization in Trenton. El Centro provides assistance with health care, naturalization, and basic needs for migrants on Trenton\u2019s South Broad Street, serving between 2 and 3 thousand individuals annually. \u201cRumors spreading and fear are making migrants afraid to leave their homes, much less report for work,\u201d said Painting.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Migrants in New Jersey and nationally are increasingly noticing ICE agents in their neighborhoods and workplaces. The promotion of an immigration enforcement \u201ctip line\u201d used by the agency has also led to a rising sense of suspicion and paranoia amongst migrant communities, according to advocates including Resistencia en Acci\u00f3n, a New Jersey organization which operates a hotline for migrants to help respond to ICE sightings.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWe often have calls to our hotline, I would say at least two to three times a day, seven days a week\u2026.unmarked cars, ICE agents walking around an area, waiting outside their workplace, their homes,\u201d said Ana Pazmi\u00f1o, the executive director of Resistenc\u00eda en Acci\u00f3n NJ, \u201c90% of the time they don\u2019t even have a search warrant, I would say. It\u2019s basically them just looking to arrest as many people as they can.\u201d\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

ICE has already completed several major raids across New Jersey under Trump\u2019s new bill. On July 8th, ICE arrested 20 individuals at an Alba Wine and Spirits warehousing facility in Edison. Later that month, on July 24th, Homeland Security officials stopped a van carrying a group of Guatemalan migrants to landscaping work in Princeton, detaining 15. Most recently, raids in Princeton and Jersey City resulted in the arrest of 9 Chilean nationals on September 19th.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThe immigration response has been very harsh. There\u2019s a lot of cruelty involved,\u201d said Stephen Macedo, a professor of Politics at Princeton specializing in immigration policy. \u201cThe Biden administration made a grave error in allowing so much undocumented migration. The Trump administration is now taking liberties in responding to the issue and its enforcement measures have been cruel.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The President responded to concerns about the way the new ICE quotas were affecting farmworker performance in a Truth Social post in June.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cOur great Farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,\u201d Trump wrote. \u201cThis is not good. We must protect our Farmers, but get the CRIMINALS OUT OF THE USA. Changes are coming!\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

However, Congress has yet to provide a solution to the concerns of farmers nationwide. Rather, in response to protests over immigration enforcement in states including California and Oregon, the Trump administration is deploying the National Guard against its citizens. On Sunday, Trump sent 300 federalized members of the California National Guard to Oregon\u2013\u2013\u00a0a decision Gov. Gavin Newsom of California called \u201creckless and authoritarian conduct,\u201d according to the New York Times. The President previously activated more than 4,000 troops in California to address similar protests in June.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cUntil migrant workers feel secure, the farming industry in New Jersey will continue to suffer,\u201d said Zepeda, on behalf of CATA. \u201cI don\u2019t know how long our local farms will survive.\u201d <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Immigration enforcement efforts are escalating dramatically in New Jersey, disrupting farming operations and leaving crops to rot. Fearing immigration-related arrests, farmworkers are failing to report for work, causing a labor shortage which NJ farmers say could lead to farm closures and higher prices for produce.\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve seen people losing their jobs because the farm owners<\/p>\n

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