Massive firings in Brewster, and a big debate about illegal immigration
Federal immigration authorities had alerted Gebbers Farms that a number of its employees' hiring forms were suspect. Unless those employees could prove they were in this country legally, the company would let them go.
Many couldn't. Like the vast majority of America's agricultural work force, they were illegal immigrants who used fake documents to get jobs picking and packing fruit, in this case in and around this small town on the Columbia River north of Wenatchee.
Five days later, the company dismissed an estimated 550 workers — equal to about a quarter of Brewster's population. It was the biggest firing of its kind ever seen in Washington. And former workers say the letters and firings are still coming.http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2011069760_brewster14.html
By Melissa Sánchez -- Yakima (Wash.) Herald-Republic