How US immigration raids hurt summer pleasures, from berries to barbecues

In the US, hardly a food is untouched by immigrant labor - and Ice raids will profoundly affect the food labor systemFrom his father's strawberry farm in central California, Tomás Diaz noticed a border patrol vehicle driving toward a field of workers. Diaz, himself Mexican American and a US citizen, yelled in Spanish: "Run for your life! That's immigration!" As the men scattered, the agents grabbed whom they could. In the chaos, six workers escaped, and Diaz was detained for interrogation. "Why did you yell at the Mexicans to run?" an officer pressed. "No reason at all," Diaz calmly replied.This did not happen yesterday, but in 1953. Driven by fears of border infiltration by communists and "criminal" and "diseased" migrants, the Immigration and National Service (the Department of Homeland Security's predecessor) carried out "Operation Wetback" from 1954 to 1957. Border patrol officers raided public spaces, workplaces and homes and formally deported about 400,000 Mexicans (hundreds of thousands more repatriated out of fear). Continue reading...