Jose Portillo, longtime owner of El Coliman in Othello, Wash., looks at a framed page of an article a local reporter did for his business. He had opened up his business five months before this article was published. (Monica Carrillo-Casas/The Spokesman)
OTHELLO, Wash. – José Portillo looks up at a picture of former President Barack Obama near his desk.
“Hopefully, you’ll see a picture of Kamala Harris up here soon,” he said.
Portillo, longtime owner of El Coliman, provides services for many people who were brought to the United States under the H-2A temporary worker program, as well as undocumented families and farmworkers. He helps the workers send money to their families in their home country.
With the election just two weeks away, however, he’s concerned about the future of his business and the community of Othello.
“This is a town of immigrants,” Portillo said in Spanish. “As business owners, that affects us.”
Washington state’s undocumented population stands at 246,000, many filling essential positions across the state, according to the Migration Policy Institute.
Since beginning his run for another term in the White House, former President Donald Trump has promised to undertake “the largest deportation in the history of our country,” assembling a “deportation force” that would include federal, state and local law enforcement agencies.
While Trump has been vague about how such an operation would work, many people in his orbit have signaled that a second Trump administration would be even more aggressive in deporting people, potentially affecting farm owners and businesses in communities such as Othello, home to a population that is nearly 77% Hispanic, and others across Washington state.
Jake Mendez Jr., a local activist in Othello and member of ACLU Washington, has been advocating for the Hispanic community since the early 2000s.
He has also voiced his thoughts regarding a potential mass deportation’s impact on the small rural town, although doesn’t want to think too far ahead on the matter since Trump hasn’t been re-elected.
“With no jobs, there’s no economy; with no economy, there’s no business – then who’s going to take over those jobs? You got to look at it. The Hispanic/Latino community is the majority,” he said.
About 30 minutes away from Othello, Royal City has a population of 2,060 – 94% Hispanic and 35% who work in the farm fields.
Silverio Hernandez, foreman for Washington Fruit & Produce in Royal City and a former resident of Othello, said both towns have a diverse mix of people, including undocumented workers, H-2A laborers and U.S. citizens.
“We’ve already had issues because of the overtime law, which has decreased the economy, so imagine that and then a mass deportation happens? Everybody would go out of business,” Hernandez said. “I’ve always said this is a land built by immigrants.”
Although many of the company’s workers are part of the H-2A program, if local undocumented workers go to them for work, that isn’t something they would know.
“We don’t know if they are or not, we aren’t law enforcement,” Hernandez said. “That’s not our job, and it’s prohibited to ask them.”
Washington State Patrol spokesman Chris Loftis has said the agency’s policy and state law updated by the Legislature in 2019 dictate that because its troopers don’t have primary jurisdiction over federal immigration law. Because being in the country without authorization is a civil matter, a person’s immigration status alone isn’t subject to state law enforcement.
Washington state law also prohibits sharing information on someone’s immigration status unless it is directly connected to an investigation of a crime under state or local law.
“The Washington State Patrol enforces the laws of our state in a respectful, dignified and diligent manner,” Loftis said in a statement. “Our policies on enforcement of immigration law, clear and unambiguous, are based on state law intended to ensure the rights and dignities of all are protected. In 2019, state lawmakers reasoned that it is not the purpose of Washington law enforcement agencies to enforce immigration laws and took action that restricts law enforcement from taking any enforcement action based solely upon a person’s immigration status or employment.”
Jose Ramirez, owner of El Paraiso Orchard in Royal City, has also been paying close attention to the presidential election.
Although he believes Trump’s mass deportation plan is all “talk” and he doesn’t think he would go through with it, he said that if Trump did, it would affect more than the people who are deported.
“If we don’t have agricultural people that come to do their work and we depend on them, then we have to hire people that really don’t want to work in the field, and we have to pay a lot more,” Ramirez said. “Then we have to sell our product for a higher price. Otherwise, we’re not going to be growing here.”
He said that it would create bigger issues as well, like jobs being cut in schools and the possibility of separations of mixed-status families.
Paulina, an undocumented farmworker in Royal City, has been working in the fields of Washington state since she was 15 years old.
Now 30 and with five children, her oldest being 15, she’s afraid of what the deportation would do to her family.
“I’m not scared for myself, but I am scared that I’ll get separated from my kids,” she said, her words translated from Spanish.
She declined to share her last name for fear she could be sought by authorities or become a target for deportation.
An hour south of Royal City, Gloria, who for similar reasons declined to share her last name, is an undocumented farmworker who also has been living in fear.
Several years ago, one of her co-workers overheard that ICE was planning a raid and warned undocumented workers to go home.
Immediately, and without saying a word, Gloria left – and so did everybody else on that farm.
“We need someone who will do good for the undocumented population, for the Hispanic community and for farmworkers most importantly,” she said in Spanish. “We can’t continue to be scared.”
For months, she would only go to work and limited how much time she spent outside of her home, fearing she would be deported.
The largest mass deportation in history, called “Operation Wetback,” dates back to the 1950s under the Eisenhower administration, an initiative about which Trump has often spoken highly.
Last year at a rally in Iowa, Trump said by “following the Eisenhower model, we will carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”
As many as 1.3 million people were deported in an effort to remove undocumented Hispanics from the United States, despite many being invited to work in the fields through the Bracero Program.
One justification for the program was that some believed it would benefit the well-being of the U.S. economy. But it was ultimately deemed a failure, as it failed to stem the tide of illegal immigration, drew public outcry and lost funding.
Despite this history, not everyone is convinced that a mass deportation plan would affect their community.
Paula McKay, manager of Mar-Jon Labor, LLC, said because many workers in Othello are part of the H-2A program or have been here for several years, it wouldn’t affect them, since she doesn’t see the likelihood of it happening.
“I know that it’s been taken out of context – I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen because I don’t think they’re going to do that to those people that have been here 10, 20, 30 years undocumented,” McKay said. “I think they will give them a chance to become, probably at least, a permanent resident or citizenship.”
Her colleague and founder of Mar-Jon, Jon Warling, also doubts it will happen.
He said if any regulations are introduced during a potential second term under Trump, however, those who have worked hard and have been here for decades should have a pathway to citizenship.
“The ones that have a history of being here should be left alone,” Warling said.
Other community members remain uncertain.
José Garza, executive director of the Othello Food Bank, expressed doubt about whether Trump would proceed with a mass deportation, and he remains unsure about how it would impact the community.
He emphasized that with Othello’s farming industry being well-established, he suggested that it might withstand such challenges. He also said he would like to believe that the community would come together if a mass deportation happened.
“I think we’re mostly affected through the state laws – especially because this election we’re getting a new governor, and we’re getting a lot of new officials, and so it’s going to be a change,” Garza said.
But if even state laws can cause challenges, federal laws can pose much larger issues.
In his first week in office, Trump signed an executive order directing ICE to arrest and deport anyone in the country who didn’t have authorization.
Trump said in April 2017 that people who entered the country illegally as children, known colloquially as “dreamers” and protected under a program called DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, should “rest easy” because his administration was “not after the dreamers, we are after the criminals.”
Yet two months earlier, ICE detained a 23-year-old man in the Seattle area despite him being protected by DACA.
In response to that incident and Trump’s efforts to speed up deportations, Gov. Jay Inslee signed his own executive order in February 2017 making it clear, as the Democrat said at the time, that “Washington will not be a willing participant in promoting or carrying out mean-spirited policies that break up families and compromise our national security and community safety.”
Under that order, state agencies and their funding can’t be used to aid federal deportation operations.
Antonio De Loera-Brust, communications director for United Farm Workers, noted that Trump tried to cut farmworker wages during his first presidency, including the pay of those who were U.S. citizens.
Colleen Putzel-Kavanaugh, an analyst at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan research organization, also noted that another Trump administration would likely see a return of the broad restrictions on legal immigration of his first term, including dramatic cuts to the refugee program and existing visa programs intended to reunite families and help foreign students attend U.S. universities.
Such policies only add to the concerns of business owners such as Portillo.
“I’ve had my business for 15 years, you know, my wife also does DACA renewal applications and helps people fill out applications for citizenship,” Portillo said.
“If Trump becomes president, it wouldn’t be good.”
Hernandez echoed these worries, and said that cutting these programs and deporting individuals obscures a larger issue.
“Like I said, you can say that there are Hispanics that are criminals, but there are many Americans who are criminals as well,” Hernandez said in Spanish.
“Everybody only wants to focus on immigration.”
This article was first published by The Spokesman-Review through the Murrow News Fellow program, managed by Washington State University.
Reporter Orion Donovan Smith contributed to this story. His work is funded in part by members of the Spokane community via the Community Journalism and Civic Engagement Fund. This story can be republished by other organizations for free under a Creative Commons license. For more information on this, please contact our newspaper’s managing editor.