immigration

Vice President Mike Pence and other members of the Trump cabinet are holding a conference in Miami with Central American leaders, pressing them to discourage their citizens from migrating to the United States, says the LA Times. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly and Secretary of Treasury Steven Mnuchin will be in attendance, along with officials from the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America or Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador — countries known for their high murder rates, extreme poverty and violence.

Guest farmworkers recruited to the U.S. under the H-2A visa program are guaranteed a free place to stay, with the costs covered by their employer. But many towns in California don’t want to see non-native workers living in their midst, fearful that the newcomers will bring crime and traffic and lower property rates, says Los Angeles Times.

Alex Jones, the right-wing host of the radio show InfoWars, says he was wrong to link the Greek yogurt company Chobani LLC and its owner, Hamdi Ulukaya, to a 2016 child-sex-abuse scandal and a rise in tuberculosis cases in Twin Falls, Idaho, where the company is located.

The U.S. Department of Labor is charging Santiago Gonzalez, the owner of G Farms in El Mirage, Ariz., with housing roughly 70 Mexican workers in dangerous conditions and paying them below the legal minimum.

Last fall, the FBI derailed a plot by homegrown extremists to blow up an apartment complex in Garden City, Kan., that housed Somali refugees who had come there to work in the town’s meatpacking plants. In the latest story from FERN, produced in partnership with The New Republic, Ted Genoways tells how the town rallied around its newest residents.

The Western Growers Association, speaking for produce growers in Arizona, California and Colorado, says immigration reform should go hand in hand with the Trump administration's priority of deporting undocumented immigrants guilty of serious crimes. Western Growers chief executive Tom Nassif said, "Much of our [U.S.] agricultural productivity is owed to the hard work of foreign hands, in particular the harvesting of our nutritious fruits and vegetables."

Nervous that applying for food stamps will hurt their immigration status or put them at risk of deportation, immigrants are dropping food relief services. “Officials at Manna Food Center in Montgomery County, Md., report that about 20 percent of the 561 families they have helped apply for food stamps, or SNAP benefits, in the past few months have asked that their cases be closed,” says NPR.

There are geographic and physical challenges to building a wall along the U.S. border with Mexico that will be "complex in some areas," Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke said during a tele-conference. The Associated Press said Zinke cited the task of building the wall in Big Bend National Park and along the Rio Grande River, which forms nearly half of the border.

The dairy subsidy created in the 2014 farm law, the insurance-like Margin Protection Program, "is not working" but it can be retooled into an effective safety net, the head of the National Milk Producers Federation told the House Agriculture Committee. The changes would provide more assistance to producers during tough times, like the past couple of years, and potentially drive up costs to the government.

The number of undocumented immigrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border has dropped 40 percent since President Trump took office. “About 840 people a day were caught trying to cross the border or deemed inadmissible after presenting themselves at a port of entry in February, down from about 1,370 a day in January, according to new figures released by U.S. Customs and Border Protection,” says the LA Times.

If the Trump administration follows through on its threat to impose a 20 percent tax on all goods coming from Mexico, the price of certain imported foods like avocados could go up. But the tax will only be on the so-called dutiable value, which means the wholesale price of the avocado when it crosses the border, which runs around 50 cents. That means a Trump-era avocado might be around a dime more, says The New York Times.

Without mentioning President Trump by name, Calif. Gov. Jerry Brown made clear in his state of the state address that California is prepared to fight the new administration over key issues, including climate change and immigration.

President Donald Trump "has already started to work with Congress" for funding to build a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, said White House press secretary Sean Spicer. At his first White House news briefing, Spicer listed immigration reform among four items for immediate congressional action while the administration gives first priority to deportation of undocumented immigrants with a criminal record or who pose a security risk.

In a step hailed by the United Farm Workers union, the Homeland Security Department announced a streamlined and expedited process to protect non-citizen workers from immigration-related retaliation during labor disputes with their employers. "Unscrupulous employers who prey on the vulnerability of non-citizen workers harm all workers and disadvantage businesses who play by the rules," said Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas.