Border shutdown would affect guest workers in Yuma
On Sunday, White House officials warned the public not to call Trump’s bluff on his threat to close the entire southern border.
According to the State Department, nearly 50 border crossings along the U.S.-Mexico border would be closed for entry and exit. This would prevent hundreds of thousands of people from crossing each day.
However, one thing President Trump may have left out of consideration is how that will affect the daily import and export of goods and services between the U.S. and Mexico.
More specifically, closing the border would have a dramatic impact on the agricultural industry in Yuma.
Especially because farmers rely on guest workers that live in Mexico but commute to Yuma to work our fields.
Research Designed for Agriculture (RD4AG), a local agriculture company specializing in all aspects of Agricultural Field Research, uses a labor pool to complete their daily tasks; just as every other agriculture business in town.
A large number of their workers are coming in from Mexico every day, and shutting down the border would certainly be an inconvenience.
Steve West, the Research Director at RD4AG, said, “Our leaders have not done a good job in giving us a guest worker program that’s viable. So, that’s causing us some real fits on labor in general and having the border closed puts even more pressure on an already broken system. So, that’s the frustrating part, in all that we’ve been dealing with in agriculture for quite some time.”
Guest workers are migrants who come into the country to work, whether that be for the day or up to six to eight months, then return home.
For West, who’s been in business in Yuma since 1990, most of his field workers aren’t interested in living in the U.S.
“They want to come to work, make their money, and go home,” said West.
But with all of the controversy surrounding the border, it makes it difficult for them to get that free flow of migrants who simply want to do just that.
If there is a shortage of labor due to the closure of the border, that could contribute to a decrease in food supply, and ultimately an increase in the price of food.
