When Donald Trump supporters in rural Vermont cast their ballots, many say they never imagined immigration crackdowns would come to their farms.
[But now the leopards have come for their faces.]
At the heart of this shift is Dustin Machia, a fifth-generation dairy farmer from Sheldon. Like many in the region, Machia voted for Trump, drawn by promises of border control and national security. “We didn’t want drugs or gangbangers,” he said. But what he didn’t expect was losing some of his most dedicated employees to immigration arrests.
Vermont Secretary of Agriculture Anson Tebbetts noted that while immigrants make up a small portion of the state’s population, they are essential to its $3.6 billion dairy sector, which produces 63 percent of New England’s milk. “These workers are vital,” Tebbetts said. “Without them, the cows don’t get milked.”