Fruit growers, poultry producers worry that anti-immigration rhetoric will hurt business

With this year's growing season about to get into full swing, the hardline anti-immigration rhetoric coming out of the White House is about to play out across the fields brimming with peach and apple blossoms. Increasingly fruit and vegetable growers like Peters are anxious that they will not be able to fill the thousands of jobs needed to operate and deliver their goods to markets."Certainly the political rhetoric will have an impact," Peters said. "Even before the rhetoric we didn't have enough workers.  The whole need for labor isn't something new that suddenly happened in the last three to four months." But growers are increasingly worried that the anti-immigration rhetoric has the potential of keeping workers away not only out of fear of deportation, but for those who enter legally, out of a desire to avoid being the target of hateful rhetoric."This year I don't think a lot are going to come out of fear," said Garcia, who has worked for Peters for the past four years. "A lot come from far away and they are scared that they will come all that way and the police can come and deport them. I think we are not going to see a lot of workers."