Migrant workers in Southwest Florida face fear with storm

“”There’s nowhere to go, and we have no means to go, anyway; we have nothing,” said Pedro Andres, 30, a yard worker from Guatemala. “We have our lives, that is all.”

Besides coinciding with their return, Wilma comes at a particularly lean time for illegal workers, mostly Guatemalans, Mexicans and Haitians, who occupy the lowermost rungs of the agriculture industry here. October is traditionally slow. The farming season has yet to kick off, and many tomato and potato field workers are working one or two days a week, if that. Tomato pickers, whose hands are stained a telltale orange, earn about $45 a day, and some don’t have the money to eat, and certainly not enough to buy extra water or canned food.”

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