Immigrants are being rounded up in Hawaii's coffee fields and being treated worse than 'cats and dogs,' locals say [View all]
Source: The Independent
Monday 19 May 2025 17:13 BST
Donald Trump’s war on immigration has impacted all corners of the U.S., but now, immigration officials have targeted an isolated patch on Hawaii’s Big Island. "Even cats and dogs have rights here and in the United States, and they're being treated better than some of our community members here," Armando Rodriguez, owner of Aloha Star Coffee Farms, told local station KITV.
According to several reports, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents have been targeting immigrant workers who harvest coffee in the district of South Kona. Coffee farming is lucrative in this area due to the nutrient-heavy volcanic slopes of Earth’s largest volcano, Mauna Loa.
Armando and Karina Rodrigues, founders of Aloha Star Coffee Farms in Hawaii, launched their initiative “Aloha Latinos Hawaii” to support Latin Americans looking for farming work in Hawaii, provide the opportunity to connect with other Latinos. Yet, ICE agents have reportedly been conducting raids on the island in search of undocumented migrants since February, reports The New York Times.
It is unclear how many arrests have been made in the region. The Independent contacted ICE for comment.
Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/immigrants-hawaii-coffee-farms-ice-b2753911.html
I was wondering when I saw the article headline, how there were enough Latinos there to raise Gestapo alarms as I expect the vast majority of immigrants there are Asian (i.e., Japanese) or Pacific Islanders (e.g., from Tonga, Fiji, etc). But then they might be coming from South American countries that grow coffee and may have some experience with that.
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