The project:

Deported: The Hidden Toll of American Expulsion reveals an under-examined form of systemic inequality in American society. Deportation, and the threat of it, have upended the lives of millions of American children in the last few decades alone, while also creating a permanent underclass of workers who live in fear while their labor allows for the quiet lowering of costs for goods and services. Deported will shed light on hard truths as well as the multi-billion dollar industry surrounding deportation in order to create a long overdue shift in the national discourse over immigration.
 

From Deported:

“It’s hot out there,” is something that farmers and workers in the Finger Lakes have taken to saying to warn each other of immigration patrols, ever since the new, more robust enforcement program has come to operate at full capacity. Any car with a government insignia on its side makes them jump. Pedro, the Mexican labor contractor, now owns three large homes across the street from his in the small town of Dresden, and has carved them into apartments for his workers, to make things easier for both. But immigration agents have caught on. Pedro’s neighbors had been skeptical of him when he first moved into the neighborhood, but he helps them mow their lawns and do repairs around the house. Now, the ones who take early morning walks are returning the favor, alerting him when they see immigration vans circling the neighborhood in preparation for a sting.

On those days, Pedro calls his workers and tells them to stay inside. Then he calls the farmers to explain that they are going to wait the officers out. This works surprisingly often. But one morning, it backfires. Headed to Chandler Vineyard, Pedro is driving a van full of workers down the only road out of town. When they pass the Penn Yan Diner, they see more than half a dozen trucks and vans with ICE—Immigration and Customs Enforcement—emblazoned on the side. The officers eating breakfast inside seem to notice Pedro’s van at the same time. They sprint out of the diner and pull the van over, like in a chase scene from a movie, arresting almost everyone inside of it. Another time, a worker falls for an ICE officer’s ploy to let him inside one of Pedro’s rental houses. Other officers who had been hiding out nearby converge on the home, ransacking it of so many farmworkers that they are lined up in shackles in the street like a chain gang.

Gone is Jack Kerry’s ability to convince himself that his family grape farm, with its mostly undocumented work force, is safe. His fear has reached an all-time high. One day, a sheriff’s deputy pulls into the driveway next door to the farm. The workers in the field drop their clippers and freeze. Pedro is in the field with them, and when he realizes that the deputy is only there to visit a neighbor, he tells the workers in Spanish and they promptly get back to work. Another day at Jack’s Penn Yan farm, no one shows up to work at all. Jack calls Pedro, who explains that word of a potential raid has gotten around and his workers are spooked. Jack asks Pedro what he does when ICE arrests one of his workers right in front of him. Nothing, Pedro says, it’s better to stay quiet than to say the wrong thing.