Joel Trejo’s American Dream may be in jeopardy.
At 15, Trejo emigrated from Mexico to the U.S. to work at a citrus nursery in Florida. After a few years as an employee, he decided to launch his own company, selling citrus trees grown out of his sprawling 80-acre backyard in Lake County not only to his former employer but also to big box stores like Walmart and Lowes.
But now, despite hiring legal workers under the H-2A visa program , he’s struggling to find labor amid the U.S. crackdown on illegal immigration.
Even agriculture workers who enter the U.S. legally, doing jobs Americans find undesirable, are fearful of being targeted by federal enforcement efforts and have chosen not to come, advocates and experts in the field say.
“I’ve never seen it like this before, and out of all the