Fear stalks migrants

AGRICULTURE: US READY TO DEPORT WORKERS FEEDING COUNTRY

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With planting season well underway in California, the leading US food-producing state, fear is taking root among thousands of migrants who labor to feed a country that now seems ready to deport them.

"We have to stay hidden," Lourdes Cardenas, a 62-year-old Mexican living in the city of Fresno, said.

"You are unsure if you will encounter the immigration authorities. We can't be free anywhere, not in schools, not in churches, not in supermarkets," said Cardenas, who has lived in the United States for 22 years.

President Donald Trump's anti-immigrant rhetoric has left people like her "depressed, sad, anxious" and fearful of being deported, she said.

Cardenas is one of more than two million people working on farms in the United States.

Most were born outside the country, speak Spanish and, on average, arrived more than 15 years ago.