Is the Abandonment of Guest Worker COVID Protections a Taste of Things to Come?
The Farm Workforce Modernization Act would likely lead to enormous increases in the number of workers brought to the U.S. by growers.
David Bacon
Dorian Lopez, an H-2A guest worker from Mexico, lives in barracks in central Washington built to house contract workers brought to the U.S. by growers under the H-2A visa program.
 is co-publishing this article.
Growers are just beginning to bring this yearâs wave of contracted laborers into Washington state for the coming season to pick apples, cherries and other fruit. The laborers are arriving to just-relaxed COVID-19 health and safety requirements for farmworkers, courtesy of a Superior Court judge in Yakima County, the heart of the stateâs apple country.