During a virtual event last week organized to release a report on the struggles of farmworkers across the U.S. and Canada, one word came up early and often: fear...

... in the time between the tribunal and the report release, even more urgent challenges for farmworkers have arisen. A majority of farmworkers are immigrants, and anti-immigrant rhetoric and promises of mass deportations formed a key plank of the platform President-elect Trump ran on. Since his election, Trump appointed immigration hardliners to key posts. Last week, he confirmed that he plans to use the U.S. military to help carry out mass deportations.

As a result, the struggles shared at the tribunal and the possibilities that came out of the solidarity established there are now being shared in a new light. Workers and allied organizers expect the incoming administration to slow—and in some cases reverse—progress they’ve made, but they are also working quickly to prepare defenses to protect the people who power the American food system.

In the report, farmworkers shared experiences that put their health and safety at risk, including broken windows and lack of heat in farmworker housing on New York dairy farms, injuries from malfunctioning equipment, sexual harassment, and pesticide exposure.

These risks are likely to continue in a second Trump administration: During his last term, Trump proposed weakening rules that protect workers from pesticide drift. Advocates also expect him to end a deferred action program started by the Biden administration that allowed immigrants to stay in the country legally in exchange for helping improve workplace conditions for all workers...