Ashley Solis, a 17-year-old Mexican American in California, attends school from 7am to 3pm. She comes home, tries to finish her homework, has dinner and then heads to the local food processing plant, where she is employed to pick out bits of ice from frozen strawberries on a conveyor belt.
She works overnight from 8pm to 5am. Returning home, she somehow finds time to sleep and get her sisters ready for school. Then she goes to school herself. The cycle repeats all week.
The reason for Ashley’s punishing schedule? Poverty – and the deportation policies of Donald Trump.
Since coming to power, Trump has pushed for more raids on undocumented immigrants, averaging 7,000 deportations a month. As a result, owners and supervisors of farms and factories complain of a labor deficit. They have begun hiring more children of these same immigrant families, many of whom were born in the United States and have citizenship. Just like Ashley, whose mother is undocumented and fears deportation.
California child labor laws for agriculture are more lenient than national child labor laws. Children as young as 12 may work up to 40 hours a week in the fields on non-school days; 16- and 17-year-olds may work 48 hours per week.
It is illegal, however, to hire children under the age of 18 for night shifts at factories. But these laws appear not to be stringently enforced and factory employers are hiring minors for night shifts. At the factory where Ashley works, she said, “half of the workers are children like myself.” Many children are becoming the breadwinners for their families in the shadow of deportation. A factory owner admitted he was aware that his company hired minors who used fake names and social security numbers, but due to the labor gap he felt the factory had little choice.
“Some teenagers get everything they want for doing nothing,” said Ashley. “But many teenagers like myself have to work and work and work just to get by to pay for rent, bills and food for our families. I am sad but I know I am not alone.”
Public school teachers said in interviews that they have observed an increase in children missing class and dropping out of school. Formerly dedicated students are falling behind. Yet students do not tell their teachers why they are skipping lessons. “The fear of schools knowing [about night shifts] is not simply a fear of getting in trouble,” said Dr Sara Roe, a teacher at a local high school. “It’s the knowledge that teachers are mandated reporters who are required to report such things, resulting in the loss of that job.”
Agriculture and food processing are central to economies of small towns on California’s central coast; so is the labor of undocumented workers who have migrated predominantly from Mexico and Central America to the US. The strawberry supply chain in California generates an annual revenue of approximately $3bn a year, producing 1.8bn lb of strawberries that are shipped throughout the US and around the world. Meanwhile, the workers who pick the fresh fruit and process frozen strawberries live in abject poverty and often suffer from malnourishment.
Ashley resides in a house with 12 other families. A single room goes for $900 a month. Several tenants are undocumented and pay exorbitant fees to landlords who waive the need for paperwork. Rumors of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) raids spark terror. A few weeks ago, Ashley saw a van bearing the words “Homeland Security” drive into her housing complex’s parking lot. Moments later, Ice agents escorted her neighbor from the bottom floor of her building in handcuffs.
“Where I live, it is no longer safe,” Ashley said. “I am trying to get my family out of here.”
Ashley plans to move in the next two months.
