Why can't the people who provide for us have access to good water? This is not a way to treat human beings.
"Water for crops, but not for those who pick them — a tale as old as time for California’s farmworkers. But the latest threat to farmworkers and their water supply has nothing to do with the state’s notoriously polluted groundwater. It’s the fear of being deported by federal immigration authorities knocking down their doors.
Maria, an agricultural worker who asked to be identified only by her first name, has a story that grounds this plight. The water in her unincorporated community of Royal Oaks in California’s Central Coast region is contaminated with nitrates, rendering it unsafe for drinking or cooking. She was enrolled in a free bottled water program until federal agents seized her son.
She withdrew from the program, afraid that identifying information used to deliver the water to her home could be weaponized by immigration enforcement. A month has passed without news of her son’s whereabouts.
'Recently, several people have been taken away in the area,' Maria says in a translated interview for Circle of Blue. 'This fear prevents us from asking for help or accessing programs that could support us.'”
~ Anahita Banerjee
"ICE Raids in California Block Farmworker Access to Clean Water"
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