In the midst of a severe farmworker shortage in Santa Barbara County, hundreds of undocumented workers have been laid off in Santa Maria as the result of Homeland Security investigations. This week, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents ordered Bonita Packing Company to terminate 291 farmworkers with invalid Social Security numbers. In December, virtually the same thing happened at Adam Brothers Family Farm — co-owned by County Supervisor Peter Adam — displacing a majority of their total workforce.
“Last week was not a good week for us,” said Mitch Ardantz, managing partner at Bonita Packing Company, better known as Bonipak, which employs anywhere from 300-500 workers. “I had to look across the table from them and tell them they no longer had a job.”
Matilde Luna was one of those workers. Luna, who has four kids and made $10.50 an hour, has worked in area fields for 25 years and at Bonipak (which merged with Betteravia Farms) for 11 years. She received health benefits and had a retirement account. Last week, she was among those called into the office and given until March 4 to produce citizenship documents. If she could not, she had to sign a letter of resignation in English, she said.