UW study shows 40 percent of dairy laborers in state are immigrants

By Jacob Kushner
Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism

Like many Wisconsin dairy farmers, Tim Servais needed help, and he reluctantly faced the facts.

After expanding his farm operation outside La Crosse in 1995, Servais relied on local adults, teenagers and farm kids for help, but about three years back, Servais ran out of options.

"I just couldn't find people to do the work," he said.

Instead, he turned to Spanish-speaking foreigners eager for jobs. Now immigrants do much of the field work and almost all of the milking for his 240-cow herd.

"It worked out really well," Servais said.

Just 10 years ago, 5 percent of workers on Wisconsin dairy farms were immigrants. By 2008, that number jumped to 40 percent, or more than 5,000 workers, according to a 2009 study by the University of Wisconsin-Madison Program on Agricultural Technology Studies.

It's likely that state numbers reflect Marathon County's dairy industry, said Mike Wildeck, dairy agent for UW-Extension.

"I think it's probably in that neighborhood (of 40 percent)," he said. "It may not be quite that high, but we tend to mirror what is going on in the rest of the state."

As Wisconsin dairy farmers hire more immigrants, they face mounting pressure to ensure their work force is competent, skilled and above all, legal. Experts say farmers are often caught in a "don't ask, don't tell" web of federal employment regulations, with a strong incentive to know as little as possible about the legal status of their workers.

Servais is just one of many dairy farm owners trying to know just enough to stay in business but not so much that they run afoul of the law.

"We need them to milk cows or we'd barely be in business," said Loren Wolfe, co-owner of a 575-cow dairy farm near Cochrane in Buffalo County, of the eight Hispanic workers he and his partner employ.

The need for immigrant workers is exacerbated by low milk prices, as farmers depend upon cheap labor to remain profitable. Wolfe's business partner, John Rosenow, estimated the pair would have to pay native workers twice the rate his Hispanic immigrants are willing to work for -- $7.25 an hour, according to one of their immigrant employees.

Although dairy farm owners go through the same legal hiring process as all employers, many say the situation is complicated by estimates suggesting half of immigrant agricultural workers are undocumented, meaning they don't have the proper work visas or have come to the United States illegally.

"In my opinion, there is a high percentage of undocumented labor that is being used in dairy farms," said Eric Straub, a Milwaukee attorney who specializes in deportation defense. Straub said because of contradictory immigration laws, it is in the best interest of farmers not to know if their workers are illegal.

"See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil. I don't think they want to know," Straub said. "I think they're in a very difficult position where they have a need for labor, they have a declining labor pool in their community ... It's a very challenging environment for farmers to run a business."

Straub said employment law is vague enough to allow some undocumented workers to slip through the cracks.

Employers must require all job applicants to fill out federal I-9 employment eligibility forms and show multiple forms of identification to prove they are authorized to work. Employers send the applicants' Social Security numbers to the Social Security Administration for tax purposes. Unless they receive a "no-match" letter stating the Social Security number does not match a known worker, applicants are cleared for employment.

Undocumented immigrants often evade the issue by guessing at a valid number, or by paying someone to provide them with a Social Security number of an eligible worker, immigrants and experts said.

Employers must examine a worker's identification documents and make a good faith decision as to their validity. The confusion arises with the notion of "constructive knowledge," which states that employers who have an indication an employee might not be eligible must take further steps to ensure eligibility or terminate the employee. This constructive knowledge could arise from a document that looks false, a "no-match" letter or even overhearing the worker say a visa expired.

Rosenow, the Cochrane farmer, said the constructive knowledge provision gives farmers an incentive to know as little about the legal status of their workers as possible.

"If a reasonable person could look at the documents and would make the assumption that they're legit, then you accept them," Rosenow said.

Editor's note: This report is a joint project of several media organizations, including The Country Today, a weekly newspaper focusing upon agricultural and rural issues, and the nonprofit Wisconsin Center for Investigative Journalism. The Center collaborates with its partners -- Wisconsin Public Radio, Wisconsin Public Television and the UW-Madison School of Journalism & Mass Communication -- and other news media.