Vasquez hears from lower Rio Grande farmworkers

HATCH — Congressman Gabe Vasquez sat down Thursday evening with farmworkers from New Mexico’s Hatch and Rincon valleys, who told him about working conditions, wages, housing and some of their concerns for the future.

The informal meeting was conducted entirely in Spanish with about 30 people at a local church. Many said they were second- and third-generation descendants of immigrants to the tight-knit agricultural community.

While Hatch is best known for the chile peppers grown here, this region, nourished by the lower Rio Grande, also produces onions, pecans, alfalfa and other crops. New Mexico remains the nation’s leading chile producer, but the industry has seen acreage and yields drop sharply in recent decades amid increased global competition, labor shortages and local water scarcity.

On top of intense work, residents told Vasquez they sometimes encountered poor working conditions, such as unsanitary toilets or hot drinking water during summer months. They also said there was insufficient affordable housing for families and long waiting lists for applicants.

They also complained of wage disparities between local farm labor and temporary or seasonal foreign workers through the H-2A visa program.

In the 2024 fiscal year, the Department of Labor certified 319,565 H-2A farmworkers in fields, nurseries and greenhouses. The program is critical to U.S. food production and requires a minimum hourly wage, varying from state to state, to workers hired through the program.

Some of those at the meeting reported they were working fields for $13 per hour alongside H-2A workers being paid the New Mexico adverse effect hourly wage of $17.04.

Vasquez said those reports got his attention, suggesting the formula through which the program sets the H-2A wages was not working for the region and pitting classes of workers against each other. He suggested local employers owned some responsibility as well.

“If we just pay the local folks more and get them truly to that adverse wage rate, that lifts all boats,” Vasquez told the Journal.

Vasquez, a Democrat, said he was confident there was some room to work with Republicans on farm labor supply, wages and conditions, setting aside the “larger national conversation about immigration” as the Trump administration gears up for its promised mass deportation effort.

Additionally, as the administration proceeds with across-the-board cuts across federal agencies, Vasquez said he was concerned about the loss of workplace safety inspectors and Department of Labor staff who already had scarce resources to pay attention to small rural communities, where low-wage workers hope to keep their families close together.

“They’re concerned about young people and their futures here,” he said. “If they’re not getting paid enough to work the fields and the young people here don’t have a productive outlet or aren’t seeking higher education, then their future might not be in Hatch.”