Large numbers of migrants from China are crossing into the U.S. and finding work on marijuana farms. Some of the businesses are accused of exploiting workers and violating state growing rules.
Last summer, New Mexico state special agents inspecting a farm found thousands more cannabis plants than state laws allow. Then on subsequent visits, they made another unexpected discovery: dozens of underfed, shell-shocked Chinese workers.
a year ago. He asked NPR to use only his first initial because he is anxious about legal prosecution in the U.S. and China.L. told NPR he struggled to find work in China during the pandemic lockdown. He was forced to move out of his home after a state developer demolished his house to make way for a new project, but his new apartment was never built and he lost his deposit. When L.
One agency’s Chinese-language social media ad for"cutting grass" in a greenhouse caught L.'s eye. It offered to pay $4,000 a month in cash for what seemed like easy work, he says. Borrowing a cellphone, he dialed the number listed.From California, L. and a handful of other recent Chinese migrants were driven to a New Mexico grow operation called Bliss Farm.
At the end of their shift, the managers left, and the workers slept in wooden sheds with dirt floors, three workers NPR interviewed say. None of them were paid before the operation was shuttered. Ella Hao, an accountant from China's northern Shandong province, says she moved with her husband to Los Angeles in 2020 during the start of the pandemic, in part to secure new passports for their two U.S.-born children.
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