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“Looking at the possibility that we’re going to see changes in policies, it puts us on alert, because all of the work that we’ve done in the past several years to advance protections for our community could be put at risk,” Thelma said, speaking in Spanish. Will Lambeck, a spokesperson for the Burlington-based advocacy organization Migrant Justice, translated the interview. VTDigger granted Thelma’s request to use only her first name, given her fears of deportation.

Trump’s policy proposals don’t only pose a threat to individual immigrants in Vermont. The state’s food system, and particularly dairy farms, would take a serious blow if the incoming president followed through with his plans, experts say.

“These threats to deport masses of people are going to reveal just how dependent our food system is on immigrant labor,” said Teresa Mares, associate professor of anthropology at the University of Vermont and the author of the 2019 book Life on the Other Border: Farmworkers and Food Justice in Vermont. 

In Vermont, dairy farms that have weathered the last few decades of consolidation and industry decline are typically larger ones that “have tended to survive because of immigrant labor,” Mares said.

“If there was mass deportation of dairy farm workers, our dairy farms will close at an even faster rate than they have been,” Mares said. 

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