Cold Weather Doesn't Freeze Out California's Illegal Farm Workers

By Maria Fotopoulos, CAPS Senior Writing Fellow
January 2007

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Or as Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger learned when he visited a citrus farm to assess the weather damage from California’s devastating cold spell this month, you can still make juice when the oranges turn to mush.

The crisis has given Gov. Schwarzenegger the opportunity to play a familiar role, hero, and do what appears to be the compassionate thing for thousands of California farm workers, including those laboring here illegally, while keeping true to his position that the federal government holds the responsibility for dealing with illegal immigration.

Layoffs are expected and many workers have been “idled” through this natural disaster. The freezing temperatures have impacted an estimated 16,000 citrus pickers, farmers and packinghouse workers.

All farm workers, regardless of their legal status, will be eligible for assistance that will be made available to bridge needs created from the freeze. "Everyone will get help," the governor said during his trip to see firsthand the weather impacts in Fresno. “I think we have to reach out to everyone,” he said. “We are not here collecting immigration statuses.”

It’s been estimated that 70 percent of California’s farm workers are illegal aliens.

Henry Renteria, California’s emergency services director, added on Tuesday that the state would be prepared to address emergency unemployment insurance.

Currently, unemployment compensation is not payable to workers illegally employed in the United States

Also pitching in to help is State Sen. Abel Maldonado, R-Santa Maria. The senior son of immigrant field workers and a believer in the Sueño Americano, Maldonado is proposing modifying unemployment benefits for farm workers laid off during the freezes so that they can earn up to $200 a week without benefits being cut (current law only allows $25 per week earnings while collecting unemployment benefits).

Agri-business, illegal alien farm workers and supporters of illegal immigration will be pleased by this emergency relief. And critics will be hard-pressed to vocalize criticism on this topic; it’s certainly not nice to be mean when people are suffering and seeking state shelters just to stay warm. Thus, that taxpayer funds will go to illegal aliens likely will slide as an issue, as will the question, why doesn’t the agriculture industry take care of its own?

The relief situation does merit noting though as just one more example of the ancillary problems created by having a huge illegal workforce in the United States. The grey zone continues to enlarge, while the law of unintended consequences does its magic again and the governor plays the state’s issue versus federal issue successfully one more time.