Aggressive deportation tactics have terrorized farmworkers at the center of the nation’s bird flu strategy, public health workers say.
Dairy and poultry workers have accounted for most cases of the bird flu in the U.S. — and preventing and detecting cases among them is key to averting a pandemic. But public health specialists say they’re struggling to reach farmworkers because many are terrified to talk with strangers or to leave home.
“People are very scared to go out, even to get groceries,” said Rosa Yanez, an outreach worker at Strangers No Longer, a Detroit-based Catholic organization that supports immigrants and refugees in Michigan with legal and health problems, including the bird flu. “People are worried about losing their kids, or about their kids losing their parents.”
“I used to tell people about the bird flu, and workers were happy to have that information,” Yanez said. “But now people just want to know their rights.”
Outreach workers who teach farmworkers about the bird flu, provide protective gear, and connect them with tests say they noticed a dramatic shift — first in California, the state hit hardest by the bird flu — after immigration raids beginning on Jan. 7, the day after Congress certified President Donald Trump’s election victory. That’s when Border Patrol agents indiscriminately stopped …