President elect Donald Trump said he plans to deport millions of undocumented people immediately after taking office.
This pledge, combined with months of divisive campaign rhetoric hit a nerve for some American farm workers. Often derided as illegal workers, here in Yuma County many cross the border legally to work American fields every day
KAWC’s Stephanie Sanchez caught up with some of them to get their reaction to Trump’s words and his election win.
57-year old Jose Luis Felix Lopez who is authorized to work and live in the U.S. believes Trump’s deportation plan will fail and cause a recession.
"It’s a situation that neither country is prepared for," Lopez said in Spanish. "Mexico isn’t prepared to suddenly receive millions of people and the U.S. isn’t prepared to have a sudden labor shortage.
59-year old Ernestina Felix who spent half of her life working in the fields said she doesn’t expect anything good from a Trump administration.
"We can’t expect any good to come from this," she said in Spanish. "Hopefully we are wrong and everything he said wasn’t true. But if he expressed it before, I can’t imagine what will happen when he is sitting in that office."
But some workers are Trump supporters. 53-year old Rogelio Tapia Rangel said he likes him and thinks he has the right plan for putting people back to work.
"I want this country to move forward," Rangel said. "I’d like people to follow his work ethic."