With detention of beloved farmworker organizer, ICE comes for the labor movement

[Omaha Steve]

“We believe he was targeted,” says the political director of the farmworker union that Alfredo Juarez helped to create.

by Derek Seidman April 2, 2025

On the morning of March 25, farmworker organizer Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez was forcibly detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents who stopped his car while he was driving his wife to work in Skagit County, Washington. People to whom Juarez has spoken say he requested to see a warrant, and when he attempted to get his ID after being asked, the ICE agents smashed his car window and detained him.

Twenty-five-year-old Juarez helped found Familias Unidas Por La Justicia, an independent farmworker union in Washington State, in 2013, when he was just a young teenager. He has advocated around issues like overtime pay, heat protections for farmworkers and the exploitative nature of the H-2A guest worker program. Juarez is a beloved member of the Indigenous Mixteco farmworker community, and there’s been an outpouring of support for him across Washington State and the entire country.

Juarez is currently being imprisoned at the Northwest ICE Processing Center in Tacoma. His detention comes as the Trump administration escalates its assault against immigrants and workers. Union members and immigrant rights activists have been detained. The administration has also intensified its attacks on foreign-born students who have spoken up for Palestinian rights, such as Mahmoud Khalil and Rumeysa Ozturk.

To learn more about Juarez’s situation, Truthout spoke with Edgar Franks, the political director of Familias Unidas, about the farmworker organizer and his detention, the outpouring of support for him, and more. Franks, who also spoke to Truthout last November about the challenges facing farmworkers after Trump’s reelection, has worked closely with Juarez — who goes by “Lelo” — for over a decade.

FULL STORY: https://therealnews.com/with-detention-of-farmworker-organizer-ice-comes-for-the-labor-movement

[dchill]

1. ICE is BAD.