How Mass Deportations Could Gut the US Food System
Jose Luis Cordova starts work every day by 4 a.m. It’s still dark as he begins ushering cattle to and from the milking parlor. Cordova lives on-site at the farm in Enosburg, Vermont, where all day he can hear the rumble of tractor engines, the clip-clop of hundreds of hooves, and a near-constant lowing. Born in Mexico, Cordova has been working on dairy farms like this one since he crossed the border without documentation nine years ago.
While working on the farm in 2018, Cordova began to feel a toothache. He went to a dentist in the nearby town of Richford. While driving home, a Border Patrol car trailed him. He was pulled over, handcuffed, and detained.
Approximately 1.5 million immigrants were deported nationwide during President Trump’s first term—a number surpassed by President Biden between 2021 and 2024. With Trump pledging “the largest deportation program in American history” in his second term, farmworkers are bracing for even more aggressive crackdowns across the U.S..