FRONTLINE/World California: The Immigration Dilemma | PBS

♪ [sound effects for opening of show] ♪

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[Jason Margolis, reporter]
This is California's San Joaquin Valley,

one of the most agriculturally
productive areas in the world.

It's home to five of the nation's
top 10 farming counties.

The San Joaquin Valley is
California's breadbasket,

but farming towns like Firebaugh are being hit
hard by the recession and a three-year drought.

[Ramirez] We have 40% unemployment
numbers in this area.

That's depression-era numbers...

[Margolis] José Ramirez is
Firebaugh's city manager.

[Ramirez] I mean, what you have here
is a compound effect of crisises,

I mean, one crisis after the other,
you know, global, national, state,

and then you add the [inaudible] drought
and the natural drought that you have here.

It's never been this bad.

[Margolis]
Tonight is Demolition Derby Night,

a chance for farmers
to blow off some steam.

♪ [national anthem is sung] ♪

[explosive sounds]

[loud car engines]

[steam hissing]

Greg Meyers has been growing alfalfa,
wheat, and almonds here for 25 years.

He says his farm couldn't survive
without immigrant labor.

[Margolis] How many guys do you employ?
[Meyers] I have 22 full-time employees.

[Margolis] Are most of them
Latino guys, or are they a mix...

[Meyers] 100 percent.

[Margolis] These guys citizens? Residents?

[Meyers] They all are legal.

[Margolis] How do you know that?
[Meyers] Cut the camera.

[Margolis] We talked off-camera,
and a few minutes later,

Meyers allowed us to resume the interview.

[Meyers] Legal documentation has been
presented to me. They are legal.

[Margolis] When I ask you
that question, is it offensive?

[Meyers] No.
[Margolis] Then why did you react--

[Meyers] It's offensive in that the media
has not been friendly to farmers.

[Margolis] Meyers says the media portrays
farmers as exploiting cheap immigrant labor.

Farmers here say they work within the system.

Sean Coburn says Firebaugh has
always welcomed immigrant workers.

[Coburn] Firebaugh has probably more
Latinos, probably 50% Hispanic;

you still have a large Italian influence,
you still have a large Portuguese influence.

It's just a town of immigrants
that came here to farm the ground.

[Margolis] Coburn offered
to take me out to his fields

and show me exactly why farmers
are having such a hard time right now.

[Coburn] That's the San Joaquin River
over there. We're in the central valley.

We just drove into the middle of nowhere now.

This is the land of no water.

This guy here just sold out.
He just said, forget it.

[Margolis] The guys out here
picking the crops by hand--

are they largely immigrant labor?

[Coburn] You mean, are they illegal aliens?

You know, you can't say with all certainty

that 100% of guys that are
working for you are legal.

All I can do is this:

I've got either a validated driver's
license and a Social Security card

or I've got an immigration card
along with a Social--

We file all our paperwork.
Everything checks out.

[motorcycle humming]

[Margolis] The paperwork might check out,

but forged documents are easy to get
throughout the San Joaquin Valley.

I went to Taft, an old railroad and oil outpost
and home to many immigrant farm workers.

There's not much to see.

There are no stores, services, or parks
for children in the neighborhood.

It's just a few streets and apartments.

[translator] Buenas tardes. ¿Qué tal?
[inaudible Spanish]

[Margolis] My translator
introduced me to Moisés Silva,

who earns $8-10 an hour
picking fruit in the fields.

[translator] [in Spanish;
translation on screen]

[Silva] Oh, sí.
[translator] Yes.

The door is not working.
He has no windows.

The light is not working.

[Margolis] Silva says it took his landlord
four years to fix the light.

He's afraid to complain too much
because he's here illegally.

[translator] in Spanish;
translation on screen]

[inaudible Spanish from others]

[Margolis] Can you ask them to raise
their hands for either yes or no?

[to translator] How many of them are
here with papers, are here legally?

[translator repeats question in Spanish]

[from crowd] Nada.
[translator] Nobody.

[Margolis] Are any of them
considering going back to Mexico?

[translator repeats question in Spanish]

[no spoken response]
[translator] One.

He wants to ask a question.
[man, in Spanish]

[translator] He would like to
know where you came from

because he does not know who you are.

[Margolis] Oh, sorry. I'm a --
How do you say it? Periodista?

[translator] Sí. Periodista.

[Margolis ] Tell him he has nothing
to worry about. I'm just a journalist.

[translator repeats, in Spanish]
[man, in Spanish]

That's it. Everything's okay.
[Margolis] [chuckling] Okay.

Forty years ago, these fields
were ground zero in the fight

for better conditions for farm workers.

In the 1960s, César Chavez and Dolores
Huerta helped unionize farm workers.

They organized strikes and boycotts.

The union established a living wage
and better working conditions,

but Huerta says undocumented workers
are afraid to ask for those rights.

[Huerta] Well, undocumented farm workers
are very subjected to exploitation.

They don't get paid the proper wages,

the employers often don't
contribute their earnings for them,

their unemployment insurance earnings,

and they don't know that
they have a rest period,

that they should have a clean toilet
in the field and cold drinking water.

It's the types of conditions that we fought
for and gained for the farm workers,

but they often don't have
those type of protections.

They're afraid to speak up

because they're afraid if they speak up,
that somebody will get them deported.

[Margolis] Rick Oltman, an activist who
wants all illegal immigrants returned

to their home countries, says they
shouldn't have any protection.

[Oltman] We need to be sending the message:

"Don't waste your time or spend your money
or risk your life trying to get to America

because we're now seriously securing the border
and there's no job for you when you get here."

The illegal workers, they need to be identified
and they need to be turned out of these jobs.

We know anecdotally from
other places around the country,

where Immigration and Customs Enforcement
has sought to enforce the law and

businesses have lost a lot of the
illegal alien workers that they had,

that Americans are lined up to take those jobs.

[Margolis] I would argue that
there ARE jobs Americans won't do

because I've been traveling through
these farms over the last few days

and farmers have told me that they
put out ads looking for American workers

and Americans just won't do these jobs.

[Oltman] Will they not do the jobs
because the wages are so low?

[Margolis] Well, they're doing comparable
jobs with equally low wages.

They're working at Target, they're working
at McDonald's making less money.

[Oltman] Well, as a believer
in what we once used to have

(the market economy in this country),

I think that if the employers
were to raise the wages,

they'd be able to attract the
workers that they needed.

[Coburn] And why don't they
get paid an awful lot of money?

Because the American
consumer wants cheap food.

How much of your disposable income
do you use on buying food? [pauses]

Why is it so cheap?

[Margolis] But farmers say that
if they could pay workers more,

Americans still wouldn't do these jobs.

[Coburn] Are you gonna get an
18-year-old out of high school

to go out and pick lettuce in Salinas? No.

[Margolis] The one young American I met
says he's here working for a few weeks

because this is his mom's farm.

[to young man] And how old are you?

[young man] Uh, twenty.
[Margolis] Twenty.

Are any of your friends working in the fields?

[young man] Not that I really--
Not that I know of.

[Margolis] His mom, Robin Butterfield,
says she depends on immigrant labor.

[Butterfield] I want people to be
able to come to this country

and I want them to be able to be here legally,

and we don't need to make it
so difficult for the immigrant

that they can't come in legally, because
we DO need the workers, very definitely.

It's better for them, it's better for us.

And yeah, they pay their taxes on
what they earn, they go back home.

[Margolis] But many undocumented
workers already in the U.S. say

they don't want to go back home.

I went to an immigration reform rally in
Fresno, the heart of the San Joaquin Valley.

The people here say they're
tired of waiting for change.

[man on microphone] So we gotta
hold Obama accountable.

The worst thing we could do right now

is sit back and get comfortable because
we've got a Black man in the White House.

That's a great achievement but
that's also one of the worst times

you can kick back and do nothing.

[overlapping cheers and chants]

[rally speaker] We want the raids
to stop, first of all, that are going on,

but we also want real immigration reform

where people who are already
here get some sort of citizenship.

I know it's a controversial topic,

but the truth is, these are people
who are already here working

and America can't do without them.

[chanting]

[Margolis] What do you do here in Fresno?

[woman] I clean houses.
[Margolis] You clean houses.

[woman] Mm-hmm.

[Margolis] And are you a citizen,
a resident, or undocumented, or --

[woman] Oh, I was born here.
[Margolis] You were born here.

Okay, so you think they need an amnesty,

you think people who are here
should be allowed to stay?

[woman] Yes, they should be.

A lot of these people work and they pay taxes,
and they still want us out. Why? We work.

[chanting from workers]

[Margolis] A few minutes later,

the young woman I spoke
with found me in the crowd.

She wanted to set the record straight.
She lied to me. She's not a citizen.

[woman] Like, I grew up my whole life here.

Imagine if they send me back to Mexico?

[Margolis] How old were you
when you moved here?

[woman] I was two, and now I'm 22.

[Margolis] So let me ask you a question.

How come you decided now to tell
me that you don't have papers.

Did you just feel like --
Why did you change your mind?

[woman] I felt that I wasn't being
true to myself because I'm here

and I'm fighting for something,

but if I'm lying to you, you know,
it's -- Why am I here then, you know?

[Margolis] Yeah.

President Obama has vowed to address
America's immigration dilemma,

but so far, it's been
pushed to the back burner.

and until change happens, life goes on
as usual in the San Joaquin Valley.

♪ [closing theme] ♪

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