Thread: After immigration raid, Sacramento nursery rebounds SOB

After immigration raid, Sacramento nursery rebounds -- but questions U.S. policy

By Stephen Magagnini
smagagnini@sacbee.com
Published: Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2011 - 12:00 am | Page 1A
Last Modified: Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2011 - 7:48 am

The morning dew hasn't yet burned off the fields when Matsuda's nursery comes to life.

Mexican ballads pour out of new foreman Carlos Appollinar's pickup while he and an army of workers transplant hundreds of flowers, trees and shrubs into black plastic pots. They load bright-green hydrangeas, pink, purple and red rhododendrons and Greek cypresses that grow to 40 feet onto Matsuda's fleet of trucks, bound for retailers and landscapers in Los Angeles, Concord and San Jose.

Matsuda's, founded 60 years ago by the descendant of Japanese immigrants, has grown into a multimillion-dollar business covering 130 acres on Florin Road in Sacramento. But in recent months, the company has found itself in the cross hairs of the Department of Homeland Security, which under the Obama administration is cracking down on a growing number of businesses for hiring illegal workers.

Through Aug. 8, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement had collected more than $8.5 million in fines from 308 businesses nationwide and launched 2,842 investigations of businesses – twice the number of cases initiated in 2009.

An ICE investigation last spring uncovered 61 undocumented workers from Mexico and Central America at Matsuda's – 60 percent of its full-time staff, including the company's longtime foreman.

In the middle of Easter rush – the busiest season of the year – managers Ryan Wallace, Jim Snyder and Tom Wing held painful exit interviews with workers who were found to be undocumented.

"They were crying, we were crying," Snyder said.

Now, six months after the ICE investigation, Matsuda's has rebounded, hiring new workers.

"We will grow and ship 1.2 million plants this year," said general manager Wallace, a University of California, Davis, environmental horticulture and agricultural economics graduate.

But the whole episode has left Wallace and his managers questioning U.S. immigration policy and whether the crackdown is causing more economic problems than it's solving.

"It chastised us, put a multimillion-dollar business in jeopardy, and put them on the street," said Snyder, the company's production manager.

As Americans continue to be pounded by the recession, many are calling for sealed borders and the deportation of the estimated 12 million illegal immigrants who they claim are taking jobs and sucking up benefits and medical care that U.S. citizens desperately need. Alabama is the latest state to clamp down on illegal immigration, requiring police and schools to check the legal status of people who may be undocumented.

But Wallace and Snyder say some of the fired workers, rather than contributing to the economy, now could wind up on welfare, relying on taxpayer-funded public health services instead of the Kaiser health plan they got at Matsuda's.

"Our company is heartsick," said Wing, the sales manager. "We're losing members of our family. They're highly skilled, extremely adept at the work they do, not easy to replace."

Some had worked there for more than 20 years, paid taxes, bought homes and cars, and raised American-born children who are U.S. citizens.

Several had been in America since they were children – the so-called "Dream Act kids," Wing said.

"I'm a fiscally conservative Republican," Wing said, "but when you see it from the human point of view, it's terrible."

"These folks are the lifeblood of our economy, our food and service industries," he added. "It just doesn't seem right. I know it's the law and I'm all for security, but I don't know if everyone's willing to pay four or five bucks for a head of lettuce."

Immigration focus shifts

The Obama administration has shifted the federal government's immigration focus, cracking down on nurseries, bakeries, restaurants and other businesses that hire illegal workers. Instead of rounding up workers and deporting them – which happened under the Bush administration – ICE now targets and sanctions employers.

None of Matsuda's former workers faces deportation. The investigation hasn't concluded, but so far the nursery has not been fined. Wing says that's because they never intended to hire undocumented workers.

The increased workplace enforcement actions are designed to level the playing field for American businesses and protect undocumented immigrants from possible exploitation, administration officials say.

"We think employers who abide by the law are put at a disadvantage, and unscrupulous businesses get an unfair competitive edge," said ICE spokeswoman Lori Haley.

"Some employers exploit illegal workers," said Daniel Lane, assistant special agent in charge of ICE Homeland Security investigations in Sacramento, whose agents in 2008 arrested Vallejo restaurant owners on suspicion of keeping 30 illegal workers in a basement contaminated with rodent droppings.

But Kevin Johnson, dean of the UC Davis School of Law, questions whether the administration's increased use of "silent raids" on businesses is more political than practical.

"The bet they're making is, 'If we're tough on workplace enforcement, we can get immigration reform through Congress, some path to legalization, and possibly a new guest worker program and even a Dream Act component,' " Johnson said. He noted the administration also has been deporting nearly 400,000 people a year and sending National Guard troops to the border to show it's serious about immigration enforcement.

But "shaking down Matsuda's in the larger scheme of things isn't going to do much," Johnson said. "It's hurting employers in tough economic times and it's not getting to the root of the problem, which is why 11 million (undocumented) people have come here in the first place."

New hires mostly Latinos

For weeks after the raid, Matsuda's got 50 applications a day from people interested in filling the vacant positions, which offer a starting salary of minimum wage. Virtually all the new hires are Latinos with agricultural experience, the managers said. They include U.S. citizens, green card holders and the American-born children of immigrants.

Only five applicants were non-Latinos, and the three hired all left after a few days, Wallace said.

"One quit because she said it was too much work for the money," he said.

Matsuda's ran its new employees through the federal government's E-Verify program, which allows businesses to electronically check worker eligibility. Skeptics say the system is prone to errors, and Wallace said they saw that firsthand.

"We had one employee we weren't able to verify at all, and Social Security said she's fine," he said.

Despite their undocumented status, some of Matsuda's fired workers quickly found jobs, Wallace said.

"One got a job the next day in the strawberry fields in Fresno."

Matsuda's lost its entire spring planting crew to the crackdown, Snyder said, but the hardest person to replace was foreman Abel Vasquez, the guy in the N.Y. Yankees cap who ran the shipping department and made sure all the orders were properly filled.

Vasquez and his wife, Aida, who also was fired, had both worked at Matsuda's for 21 years.

One family's story

Surrounded by their three children and future son-in-law Marco Barajas – who also lost his job in the raid – the couple shared their story on a recent Wednesday afternoon in the living room of their three-bedroom, two-bath home in Oak Park.

Vasquez, 45, had just returned home from his new job, which involves cutting lawns and landscaping.

"At Matsuda's, I made $2,400 a month," he said. "Now, I make about $1,800, and we don't have any health insurance."

Vasquez and his wife are the children of Mexican farmers. He finished fifth grade before going to work raising corn and beans in Zacatecas; she finished sixth grade before she worked the family farm in Guadalajara.

"I don't want my kids to work in the fields," said Vasquez, whose 9-year-old son, Abel Jr., wants to become a police officer.

His daughter Mayra, 18 – who is raising her own 2-year-old daughter, Annett – hopes to be a cosmetologist.

Matsuda's allowed them to lead a middle-class life. The mortgage on their home is almost paid off, Vasquez said proudly, adding that he has paid more than $3,000 a year in payroll taxes.

Mayra was their last connection to the nursery. Born in America, she is a U.S. citizen, and was among the 61 people Matsuda's hired after the raid. But she was laid off last week.

When Mayra turns 21, she plans to sponsor her parents to become legal permanent residents. She also plans to marry Annett's father, Barajas, which will then qualify him for legal residency. Barajas, 20, now washes dishes for an Indian restaurant.

"I didn't come here because I wanted to," Barajas said. "I was 11 years old when my mom brought us from Morelia, Mexico, because they wanted us to have a chance to succeed."

He would like to see an amnesty program like the Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986. That law granted amnesty to 2.8 million undocumented immigrants in good standing who had entered the United States before 1982.

They include several of Matsuda's veteran workers – Nicholas Vasquez, 45; Guadalupe Garcia, 54; and Theresa Escoto, 60.

"I came in from Tijuana under a car seat," Escoto said. "I became an American citizen, and I can vote now. We live better in the U.S. than in Mexico, which especially now is terrible."

Wing, too, supports a new amnesty program. "Unfortunately," he said, "these people fall through the cracks."

http://www.sacbee.com/2011/10/11/397383 ... z1aUwTzZ56

Boo hoo waaahhh waaahhhhh. They still don't get it, do they?

I would rather pay $5 for a head of lettuce not harvested by an illegal alien, because it's way cheaper than being forced to give freebies to the illegal and his family!

Plus, they got farms in mexico no? Well they can head back and get jobs on those farms and they will no longer be illegal aliens, no?

Wallace and Snyder say some of the fired workers, rather than contributing to the economy, now could wind up on welfare, relying on taxpayer-funded public health services instead of the Kaiser health plan they got at Matsuda's.

If they are not citicens or legal immigrants they shouldn't beable to recieve any taxpayer paid benifits. They should be charged with theft and deported. The company that hired them should be heavily fined for hireing them.

Another sob story so the Elitists can push their agenda of Blanket Amnesty for their ILLEGALS to secure their source of cheap ILLEGAL labor. This article is a SOB story written as part of an organized campaign to generate support for more ILLEGALS to scurry across the border to the United States! The Elitist are no more concerned about these ILLEGALS and the children of ILLEGALS than they are about United States Citizens; Just Follow the Money!

Originally Posted by miguelina

Boo hoo waaahhh waaahhhhh. They still don't get it, do they?

I would rather pay $5 for a head of lettuce not harvested by an illegal alien, because it's way cheaper than being forced to give freebies to the illegal and his family!

Plus, they got farms in mexico no? Well they can head back and get jobs on those farms and they will no longer be illegal aliens, no?

Just have prison labor pick the crops for free. . . and a third of prisoners are illegals!!! Hahahahaha!