Farming in the ICE-age: An Intimate View of Strength in the Face of Terror and Dislocation

Michael and Carrie Kline, Talking Across the Lines

Angelique Bickford is a nearly-26-year-old first time mother. She is a natural, and her three-month old daughter is calm and happy. This is remarkable given the circumstances. While working in the packing shed, she fell in love with Maico, another employee on the organic farm. They managed to embark on a special relationship despite great shyness. Right when the baby was born four members of their family living nearby were violently seized—the door knocked down—without a warrant or provocation, and abducted by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, ICE, some detained, others deported. Angelique and her partner lived in fear, all the while loving their life together with their housemates and their new precious child. But soon enough, on the way to work Maico too was pulled out of the vehicle in which he was riding early one morning this spring. He too is in detention. Angelique expresses hope, a sense of calm mixed with distress and outrage, along with her own theory as to why so many of her new family members and co-workers are being seized.