End the Raids. Protect Workers. Build with Justice.
Unmasking the Lies: Our Vision for a Humane Immigration System
Last week, federal agents stormed Glass House Farms—a large, licensed, tax-paying cannabis company in California—in military-style fashion, detaining nearly 100 farmworkers. One worker was killed. Others were injured. And within hours, President Trump trotted out a familiar narrative steeped in fear, misinformation and dehumanizing rhetoric.
This is not new. The Trump administration has long relied on a dangerous script: Immigrant workers are “criminals.” They’re “stealing American jobs.” The raids are “necessary to protect the economy.”
Let’s be unequivocally clear: This isn’t about public safety. It is about targeting the most vulnerable among us while shielding those who profit from their exploitation. It was economic violence disguised as law enforcement. A show of force, yes. But one orchestrated by a system doing exactly what it was built to do.
The Uncomfortable Truth About “American Jobs”
To understand who actually performs the most grueling labor in this country, we have to confront our own history.
The Bracero Program: Our First Codified Exploitation
From 1942 to 1964, the U.S. ran the Bracero Program: an agreement with Mexico that brought millions of Mexican men to the U.S. as agricultural contract laborers during WWII labor shortages. While the program promised humane treatment and protections against discrimination and poor wages, it delivered widespread abuse: low pay, squalid housing, and a total lack of labor protections. It cemented our reliance on cheap, disposable labor from the Global South.
When the Bracero program ended—thanks to pressure from labor unions and civil rights activists like Cesar Chavez—American farmers claimed their crops would rot without foreign labor.
Enter the “A-TEAM” (No, not the TV show)
In 1965, the U.S. government launched a PR stunt: the “A-TEAM,” or Athletes in Temporary Employment as Agricultural Manpower, recruiting 20,000 high school boys to work the fields.
Despite 18,000 sign-ups, only 3,300 showed up. Most quit within days. Some went on strike. The conditions were so exploitative that even this federally orchestrated whitewashed replacement collapsed almost immediately.
As Randy Carter, a former A-TEAM participant, later reflected: “We know the work they do. And they do it all their lives, not just one summer for a couple of months. And they raise their families on it. Anyone ever talks bad on them, I always think, 'Keep talking, buddy, because I know what the real deal is.'"
Historian Lori A. Flores explains it more bluntly:
“These [high school students] had the words and whiteness to say what they were feeling and could act out in a way that Mexican-Americans who had been living this way for decades simply didn’t have the power or space for the American public to listen to them… [The A-TEAM] reveals a very important reality: It’s not about work ethic. It’s about the fact that this labor is not meant to be done under such bad conditions and bad wages.”
This is still true today. The jobs are backbreaking, and the wages are insufficient to attract domestic workers. Even President Trump, in a rare moment of truth on Truth Social, admitted that “our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from [farmers and hospitality employers], with those jobs being almost impossible to replace.”
In fact, 59% of Trump supporters agree that undocumented immigrants largely fill jobs American citizens don’t want.
“I can confidently say that most farmers in the country either laughed out loud or were just deflated by those comments… It just shows how uninformed and out of touch some of these officials are with what food production looks like in this country.”
— Helen McGrath, Ventura County citrus and avocado farmer, on Secretary Brooke Rollins’ suggestion that Medicaid recipients should replace deported farmworkers
The issue isn’t that immigrants are “taking” jobs. The issue is a system that allows employers to exploit a vulnerable workforce with impunity. If American workers are being displaced, blame the system and the people doing the hiring—not the people doing the hoeing.
Rhetoric vs. Reality: Unmasking the Truth About Immigration Raids
Let’s dissect the administration’s lies, one by one.
⚠️ TRUMP CLAIMS: They’re going after criminals.
THE TRUTH: This is perhaps the most insidious lie of all.
According to ICE’s own data as of June 14, 2025, 65% of those detained had no criminal convictions. Over 93% had no violent offenses. And even among those with convictions, the majority were for minor infractions like immigration violations or traffic offenses.
ICE deliberately labels individuals with pending charges as “criminals” to inflate their numbers and fuel public fear.
A federal judge recently blocked ICE raids in Los Angeles and several other California counties, explicitly banning detentions based on “apparent race or ethnicity” or “speaking Spanish.” These raids aren’t about crime. They’re about race, fear, and control.
And here’s the real kicker: ICE is arresting people for doing work that Americans won’t do, for wages Americans won’t tolerate, under conditions no one should have to endure.
The real crimes are exploitation, wage theft, and labor trafficking.
And those crimes are being committed by employers—who almost never face consequences.
⚠️ TRUMP CLAIMS: Undocumented immigrants are a burden on taxpayers.
THE TRUTH: Another myth designed to stoke resentment.
Undocumented immigrants contribute billions in taxes annually despite being barred from most public benefits. In 2022, they paid an estimated $96.7 billion in federal, state, and local taxes, including nearly $20 billion in income tax and $32 billion in payroll tax.
In 40 out of 50 states, undocumented immigrants pay a higher effective tax rate than the top 1%.
Meanwhile, billionaires and corporations enjoy tax cuts, subsidies, and special treatment.
So if you’re looking for freeloaders: look up, not down.
⚠️ TRUMP CLAIMS: This is about restoring order.
THE TRUTH: What he really means is restoring control over labor and dictating who gets to live and work with dignity.
These raids are a show of force. They are designed to intimidate, to create fear, to silence workers, and to send a message that immigrant workers lack fundamental rights and safety.
ICE isn’t being deployed to protect communities. It’s being used as a tool of economic and social repression.
🔍 THE PUBLIC DOESN’T WANT THIS
Crucially, recent public opinion data directly contradicts the idea that aggressive enforcement reflects a public mandate.
A Gallup poll released in July 2025 reveals a significant shift in American attitudes towards immigration:
The percentage of Americans who want less immigration dropped from 55% in 2024 to just 30%, returning to 2021 levels.
A record-high 79% of U.S. adults now say immigration is good for the country, up from 64% last year. This positive shift spans all major political parties.
Support for punitive measures is fading: backing for increased Border Patrol agents has fallen by 17 points (now at 59%), and support for expanding the U.S.-Mexico border wall has dropped by 8 points (now at 45%).
Meanwhile, 78% now support a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants—up from 70% last year.
Bottom line: The public is not calling for more raids.
The current enforcement approach is not only cruel, it’s increasingly out of step with the values and views of the country it claims to protect.
The System is Working Exactly as Designed
ICE didn’t raid a boardroom. They raided a farm. They didn’t detain the CEO. They detained the workers picking crops.
This is not a bug in the system. It’s the point of the system:
To criminalize survival.
To protect capital.
To sacrifice workers to preserve wealth.
Employer Accountability: The Enforcement Gap
U.S. law is clear: under the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986, employers who knowingly hire undocumented workers face severe penalties, including fines, asset forfeiture, even prison.
And yet, ICE overwhelmingly targets workers, not employers. There is a notable absence of public data on employer prosecutions or penalties. While there are occasional high-profile cases, they are the exception, not the rule.
Programs like IMAGE (Mutual Agreement between Government and Employers) even let employers voluntarily hand over records to reduce their fines.
When employers face minimal risk, there's little economic incentive to ensure a fully legal workforce, perpetuating reliance on undocumented labor and providing a continuous pool of individuals for ICE to target. If this were really about jobs or national security, we’d be targeting those writing the paychecks, not those cashing them.
Why the “Legal Pathways” Argument Doesn’t Hold
Yes, we have visa programs like H-2A and H-2B. But they’re expensive, complicated, and inefficient.
Employers must pay high fees, navigate multiple federal agencies, and comply with complex rules. Only 80% of certified H-2A jobs result in actual visa issuance.
The government's failure to provide adequate, accessible, and comprehensive legal pathways for temporary labor directly contributes to the presence of undocumented workers. This means that the "problem" ICE is tasked with addressing is, in part, a consequence of an inadequate legal immigration system. The raids, therefore, become a punitive response to a systemic issue that policy itself helps to create, rather than a solution to the underlying labor needs.
For many employers, the calculation is simple: it’s easier and cheaper to hire undocumented workers since they risk no real penalty.
The system incentivizes exploitation and then punishes the workers it pushes into the margins.
What We Need: Systemic Equity, Not Political Theater
At mBOLDen Change, we believe that Safety, dignity, and economic security are basic and universal rights, not privileges. We are committed to building a society where:
No worker is arrested for trying to survive.
Exploitative employers are held legally accountable.
Labor protections apply to all workers, regardless of status. We must recognize that cheap labor—born from exploitative conditions—ultimately harms everyone. It not only suppresses wages and diminishes the dignity of work for laborers but also erodes our collective values, suggesting that human exploitation is an acceptable cost of doing business. A truly equitable system values all people and their labor, ensuring fair wages, safe conditions, and humane treatment, without distinction of origin or status.
This requires a complete shift from a punitive, fear-based immigration model to a rational, just, and humane system.
That Means PolicyMakers Must:
Reform visa programs and expand legal pathways like H-2A and H-2B so they are functional, accessible, and free from abuse.
Pass the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which offers a pathway to legal status and helps stabilize the essential agricultural workforce.
Enforce employer accountability and end the era of impunity for corporate violators who knowingly exploit unauthorized labor.
Center human dignity in every policy decision, from labor standards to enforcement protocols.
Address the root causes that drive migration in the first place, including economic dislocation, climate disruption, and our own foreign policy failures.
Every human being deserves to live in safety, freedom, and dignity. This is not a radical idea. It’s a moral imperative.