Illegal Immigration in the San Joaquin Valley

Over the twelve years from 2010 until 2022, California’s total immigrant population increased about 3%. The portion of undocumented immigrants in that total declined from 28% in 2007 to 18% in 2021. That’s  compared to a 14% (or 1.2 million) increase from 2000 to 2010, and a 37% (or 2.4 million) rise in the 1990s. These figures are from the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC).

For those who want raw numbers, the PEW Research Center charts the decline in total numbers of California’s unauthorized immigrants from 2.80 million in 2007 to 1.85 million in 2021.

From 2019 through 2022, most states’ illegal immigrant population stayed steady. Six states — Florida, Texas, New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Maryland — showed “significant growth” in illegal immigrant populations. During that same time period, California’s illegal immigrant population decreased by 120,000.

Part of California’s decrease in total undocumented immigrants was due to the decrease of undocumented farmworkers in the San Joaquin Valley. Over the decade from 2010 to 2020, the total number of farmworkers hired specifically for crop production declined by 20,000.

According to a 2022 report, the Labor Department’s most recent National Agricultural Workers Survey shows that in 2017 and 2018, unauthorized immigrants accounted for only 36 percent of crop workers hired by California farms. That was down from 66 percent, according to surveys performed 10 years earlier.

The majority of California’s farm labor works in the San Joaquin Valley, which produces a larger portion of the nation’s food than anywhere else in the world. Part of the decline in unauthorized workers in the Valley has been due to the hiring of workers with H-2A visas. H-2A visas are typically good for a few months, usually during harvest times when the need for workers increases.

The overall decline in California’s illegal immigrant population thus includes a decline in immigrant farmworkers, both legal and illegal. That decline in farmworkers is due to factors like crop changes and mechanization, among others.

Like the rest of the state, the San Joaquin Valley suffers from an extreme housing shortage. If unauthorized immigration were the cause of that shortage, it would seem to follow that declines in such immigration would result in a rise in housing inventory. That has not been the case, obviously. Instead, as illegal immigration numbers dropped, housing shortages increased.

There has, however, been a significant increase in lawful immigration numbers nationwide, “from 24.1 million in 2000 to 36.9 million in 2022. The growth was driven by a rapid increase in the number of naturalized citizens, from 10.7 million to 23.4 million.” Some of that growth occurred in California, obviously.

Nonetheless, if anything is clear from the facts, California’s and the nation’s housing crisis is not due to hordes of illegal immigrants crossing our southern border as claimed by some of our candidates for office. But anti-immigrant rhetoric never has been about facts, and it’s even more fulsomely deceitful today.

In the past, the “illegal” tag for immigration was an attempt to provide cover for the nativism, racism and xenophobia that have characterized incendiary political rhetoric at least since the American Civil War. That the cover provided less concealment than a negligee on an elephant didn’t matter. What mattered was stoking mindless mob outrage.

Today, anti-immigrant rhetoric doesn’t even bother with the negligee. Today, we have candidates for the highest office in the land spreading vile lies about legal Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio. We have those same candidates twisting very local gang activity in Aurora Colorado into a national crime wave. Aurora’s Mayor, City Council, and law enforcement officials have tried to speak the truth about overall crime in their city, but their voices have been drowned out by the larger platform and louder cries of men willing to achieve power at any cost.

The real goal is to stimulate the nativism, racism and xenophobia that have characterized totalitarian movements at least since the late 19^th century. The real goal is to replace science, learning and law with prejudice, paranoia and arbitrary power.

Demonizing immigrants with vile lies and outrageous hyperbole doesn’t just degrade our national discourse, it divides our nation. The truth is that the San Joaquin Valley agricultural economy wouldn’t survive without immigrant labor, nor would major sectors of the nation’s economy as a whole.

Unfortunately, truth and justice are under siege. It’s going to take the honor and integrity of common citizens to defend them. More of us need to stand up and speak out.

Nations built on lies always turn against the people. Tyranny begins with the most vulnerable and builds to tyranny over all but the chosen few. We may be divided by issues, but every one of us should be united in the defense of the truth.