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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.”
As vowed by the Trump administration’s January executive order to identify, detain, and deport undocumented immigrants, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has pursued what residents here and in other communities regard as a regime of terror sweeping across southern and central California. Federal agents have been given free rein by the U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative majority to target individuals based on superficial factors like race, occupation, or language. One unmistakable consequence is that regardless of their legal status, immigrant workers have been fearful to leave their homes due to mass detainings and deportations in the state.
The federal government’s aggressive tactics have cast a pall of daily menace over Maria’s life. However, hiding inside isn’t an option since ICE started its raids. Every three days, Maria must travel to buy bottled water that costs her $120 a month. The trip exposes her to ICE and the expense eats into her meager wages from farm work. She has no choice but to take the risk.
“We have no other safe option,” she says.
We learned about Maria through the Community Water Center, a Central Valley public interest group that specializes in water policy and human rights. The Center’s Senior Policy Advocate Shirley Robles helped us interview Maria.
The basic hardships of Maria’s experience are shared by tens of thousands of immigrant Californian farmworkers. Essential to the nation’s agriculture, they supply the grains, fruits, vegetables, and animal protein that are staples of the American diet.
The threat of indiscriminate deportation without due process follows these workers from their job sites into their homes, forcing them to forgo safe water in order to protect their families. The extent of the government’s deportation campaign is deep and disturbing.
Funding for rural water infrastructure promised by the Biden-era EPA has been snatched back by the Trump administration. Trust built over years with community organizations that deliver water is breaking down. An act as simple as opening the front door has become fraught with danger. Immigrant farmworkers are being erased from public spaces, survey data, and political advocacy. With them goes the integrity of the nation’s constitutional commitment to protect all people within its borders.
Plastic Bottles, Or Polluted Wells
The Royal Oaks Community is one of hundreds that dot California’s Central Valley and Central Coast, an area which single-handedly produces over 25 percent of the nation’s food. Much of the region’s piped water infrastructure ranges from contaminated to nonexistent. In a 2022 report from the UC Merced Community and Labor Center, over a third of surveyed agricultural workers reported that their domestic water tasted “bad”, while another 10 percent didn’t have water in their home at all.
Due to the unreliability of their tap water, 1.3 million rural Californians rely on private domestic wells instead. However, the groundwater in this agricultural heartland is heavily polluted, largely due to pesticide and fertilizer runoff. The state conservatively estimates that one in three domestic wells are contaminated with dangerous levels of arsenic, nitrates, hexavalent chromium, and 1,2,3-TCP — carcinogens that result in lifelong health complications.
Left with no other recourse, many rural households like Maria’s resort to purchasing bottled water. In addition to the financial burden, they must contend with miles of travel to the nearest vendor, as well as the physical strain of carrying gallons of water.
Enter Community Water Center, a non-profit organization that has been working in rural California for two decades. Among other advocacy services, for the past five years they have provided a free bottled water program to households living with contaminated water, supported by California state funding.
But since the increase in ICE activity, the program has faltered. Saul Reyes, a community advocate based in the Watsonville office, describes how despite water being delivered to their doorsteps, community members are now afraid to partake.
“People are hesitant to open their doors,” he says to Circle of Blue. “From their window they’ll ask us, who are you, identify yourself. We let them know, it’s me, Saul, with Community Water Center. But yeah, you could see that changed overnight.”
Contamination aside, Reyes stresses that the accessibility of bottled water is especially vital for households where the wells run dry from drought, or have their pumps incapacitated by day-long electricity outages.
But despite obvious need, enrollment rates in the program have dropped where Reyes works, largely due to fears like Maria’s — that their personal information will find its way into federal hands, and be used to target them.
“I was enrolled in the bottled water program offered by Community Water Center,” Maria explains in Spanish. “But I decided not to ask for help anymore because I know that most of these programs are funded by the government. I’m afraid that information could be used against me at some point or expose me further. I trust them a lot, but you never know.”
Reyes affirms that while Community Water Center makes clear their guarantee of confidentiality, households are still unwilling to share their names and phone numbers.
“We don’t share identifying information with the state to sign them up for this bottled water program. But you can hear it in their voice, that they’re hesitant. You see that and you’re like, oh man, they’re really debating between receiving clean water, or sharing their information.”
In Maria’s words, “the fear outweighs the benefits.”
Conditions Worsen At Work
Job sites provide no relief for farmworkers either. Maria expresses her anxieties around the safety of water at her workplace.
“In my work, which is in agriculture, we are provided with drinking water, but I don’t know where it comes from or if it’s truly safe for our health. There is always doubt and concern.”
Ingrid Brostrom, program director at the UC Merced Community and Labor Center, confirms that many agricultural workplaces in California are not compliant with state regulations around water access and quality. Issues range from plastic containers leaching chemicals into water stored in the hot sun, to one in ten workers not receiving water at all in the intense heat — resulting in severe dehydration, heat illness, and long term complications. But the ever-present threat of employer retaliation ensures employees do not raise complaints about their working conditions.
“While water is mandated to be provided to workers, we know that there’s a lot of non-compliance in the Central Valley,” Brostrom says to Circle of Blue. “And when you have a significant population that has very real concerns about retaliation, workers are simply afraid to report workplace non-compliance, such as access to water.”
In addition to the fear of losing her job, Maria says that she and other workers are afraid of employers reporting them to immigration authorities if they speak up about their rights as employees.
“In my case, they haven’t said so directly. But the fear always exists, because we know that in other places, employers have used that threat against workers.”
Brostrom confirms the same. “We have heard, from some of our partner organizations that work with farmworkers, that employers are using it as a threat. That if you don’t comply or do as I ask, I might report you to ICE.”
Brostrom further explains that for farmworkers that live in employer-owned housing, the peril of retaliation is a constant sword over their heads. Agricultural housing settlements often lack basic sanitation systems and water fit to drink — but fear drives residents to hold their tongues.
“If you don’t have clean drinking water in your home and your landlord is your employer, that same fear of retaliation is going to prevent you from raising those concerns and addressing the issue.” She adds that it would be a “reasonable presumption” that workers would also be afraid to leave home to buy water and other necessities due to ICE presence.
Maria expresses that for the sake of her family, she has no choice but to endure these conditions at her job site.
“I live in fear every day I go to work, and this also affects my emotional and physical health. Lately, stress has caused me to get sick several times. But I have no choice but to keep going, or we won’t eat.”
Parched Voices Go Silent
In addition to the obstacles confronting bottled water delivery, Reyes laments the “dramatic” drop in civic participation with the Community Water Center due to the climate of fear.
“We rely a lot on them to share their stories, to raise awareness. And now many community partners who were really involved, very vocal, stopped all of a sudden. It’s understandable, with everything going on. They don’t want to attract attention to themselves. But community partners shouldn’t have to choose between keeping their families together, or advocating for safe and affordable drinking water.”
Maria used to be actively engaged, but she too has withdrawn. “I no longer participate in community events or outreach programs for fear of being seen or exposed.”
Reyes describes the impact this has on their work to collect data, influence state policy, and acquire funding.
“We go to advocate at the Capitol Swing Space where the California legislators are at. And community partners ask us, will ICE be there? And we have to tell them we cannot guarantee that they won’t. And so they don’t come out and advocate.”
Advocacy is especially crucial at a time when the federal government is pulling back previously promised support. Last December, the Community Water Center had received a $20 million grant from the Biden-era EPA. The funds were intended to consolidate supplies from three adjacent communities into a single drinking water system free from contaminants.
But in May, the Trump administration withdrew the grant, stating to the media that “the Biden-Harris administration shouldn’t have forced their radical agenda of wasteful DEI programs.” In total, 400 promised environmental grants were axed.
Reyes expresses how disappointed community members were at the sudden betrayal, and how it has only served to shake their trust further in the institutions and organizations trying to help.
“We can only advance at the rate they can trust us.”
Maria summarizes conditions this way:
“Constant fear not only limits our access to water, but also our daily lives,” she says. “My health has already been affected. I feel fear every day at work. Although water is a basic need, accessing it safely has become a problem due to the fear of ICE and the lack of trust in institutions.”
Reporting this story faced unanticipated challenges. Several sources that were initially approached declined to be associated with the topic. Additionally, field reporting was deemed unsafe for our sources and our reporter due to the unpredictable nature of the situation on the ground. A mediary organization was needed to interview community members due to fears around confidentiality. Circle of Blue finds it imperative to highlight these limitations on the work of journalists and the liberty of individuals in the United States today.
Featured image: Photo by Tony Webster
