Wisconsin Watch Media Partners Center (https://partners.wisconsinwatch.org/tag/labor/)
‘Roberto’ says he was taken from Georgia, where he worked legally but was exploited, to Wisconsin, where he worked illegally — and in the shadows.
‘Los Lecheros’ (Dairy Farmers) played at 25 film festivals, bringing immigrant labor on dairies out of the shadows.
This letter was written in response to the Center’s Oct. 16, 2018 collaborative report with HuffPost titled: As Trump disparages immigrants, Midwest dairy farmers build bridges to Mexico.
The Puentes/Bridges program is a small nonprofit that organizes annual trips to Mexico to bridge the cultural gap between farmers and immigrant dairy workers — and the families they left behind.
The story, produced in collaboration with the Chicago Sun-Times, explores the practices of Chicago labor agencies that provide Latino workers to Asian restaurants across the Midwest, including in Wisconsin, under what the Illinois attorney general charges are illegal and exploitative conditions.
Farmers, experts say reliance on immigrant workers, many of them in the U.S. illegally, will continue unless dairies — and Congress — make significant changes.
The Hernandez family and other dairy workers are heading back to Mexico amid hostile rhetoric and rising immigration arrests in the Midwest and nationwide.
Dairy farmers raise wages to attract and keep Mexican and Central American employees. Workers cite hostility and heightened enforcement.