California’s $43 Billion Farms See Labor in Immigrant Fix

Along the road to downtown Salinas, California, a green-and-white sign at the edge of a plowed field reads in Spanish: “Looking for work? Call or come in. We are hiring today.”

While get-tough states such as Arizona made it a crime for undocumented immigrants to seek work, California’s $43.5 billion-a-year farm industry depends on a shadow workforce of undocumented Mexican immigrants that’s eroding under economic improvements back home and tighter U.S. border controls.