Pesticide Action & Agroecology Network works to cultivate resilient, safe, and equitable food and farming systems that do not profit from injustice. For over forty years, we have fought for the human rights of all people working in food and farming—especially migrant farmworkers, rural communities, and fenceline communities who are disproportionately and unjustly harmed by unsafe work environments and exposure to toxic pesticides.
But right now, federal agents are using racial profiling to target potential undocumented immigrants for deportation and are escalating violence in communities around the nation, including farming communities. Masked federal agents are violently abducting and detaining civilians—including children—without due process, cause, or concern for safety. Families are being torn apart—parents abducted and children left alone or in some cases abducted together and separated in detention.
These federal agents are also deploying tear gas and other violent control tactics against peaceful protestors, in potential violation of international law and standard U.S. police protocol, resulting in death and injury to civilians and bystanders. Renee Nicole Good was shot and killed by an ICE agent in Minneapolis two weeks ago, and over the weekend Alex Pretti was shot in the back ten times by the ICE agents who surrounded him on the ground. At least 4 additional people have died in ICE custody in 2026 so far, and in 2025, at least 30 people died in ICE custody.
At this critical inflection point, PAN will not stay silent. We must use our voices to name what is happening: this state-sanctioned violence against civilians, families, and communities is heinous, unconstitutional, and further perpetuates harm against already oppressed people.
Immigrant farmworkers have long been the backbone of the food and farming systems in the United States. The industry includes some 2.3 million workers, and The American Immigration Council reports that as recently as 2019, 57% of crop production workers in the U.S. were foreign-born, 36% of which were undocumented. In some states, the number of foreign-born farm workers is as high as 80%.
Our food and farming systems rely on the labor of immigrants and migrant workers to put food on American tables. Yet the federal government directs its masked agents to raid farms and neighborhoods in an authoritarian strategy to induce terror and escalate discord in our communities. We stand in unwavering solidarity with immigrants regardless of documentation status and demand justice and reparations for those harmed by the state’s assault on our communities. We the people must join together to protect our communities, and to uphold and defend human rights, whenever and wherever these rights are violated.
