This Trump Proposal Would Be 'Unrecoverable' For CA Wine Industry

CALIFORNIA — Former president Donald Trump has committed on the campaign trail to deporting over 11 million undocumented immigrants, a move that could send shockwaves through California wine country, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

In Napa Valley and Sonoma County, farmers rely on hand labor, the newspaper reported, and such deportations would create an “unrecoverable” situation, Boeschen Vineyards Owner Doug Boeschen told the Chronicle.

“There’s no way Napa Valley could survive that kind of deportation,” he told the newspaper.

About half the state’s farm workers were authorized to work in the U.S. at the time of a 2015-19 federal labor department survey, the Chronicle reported, adding some estimates put the percentage of undocumented agriculture workers closer to 75 percent.

“Farm ranchers in my district already have trouble filling the jobs they have available,” U.S. Rep. Mike Thompson, a Democrat from Napa, told the newspaper.

Mass deportation would also create a workforce void in the restaurant, hospitality and construction sectors, potentially drawing remaining farm laborers and further exacerbating an employee loss in agriculture, the Chronicle reported, citing vineyard management company owner Steven McIntyre and grape grower Andy Beckstoffer.

Read more from the Chronicle.