I’ve been focusing my reporting and writing activities in recent months on the legal difficulties facing immigrants in my home community of Waltham, MA, which seems a long way from food rights and raw milk. But as I research the specifics of immigrant legal situations, my mind goes back to the days of 2006-2020, when farmers producing raw milk and farm-slaughtered meat, along with their distributors and retailers, were being secretly investigated by federal and state regulators, and in some cases criminally charged, put on trial, and even jailed.
Remember Michael Hartmann, James Stuart, Victoria Bloch, Vernon Hershberger….among others, who were put on trial and even jailed?
Even if you have the facts and circumstances on your side, you face the intimidation and costs factor of being up against a government with seemingly endless resources. There’s the threat of going to prison and losing your freedom, and your business. All for farming and producing food very close to its natural state? It all seemed so unfair.
Yet in all the years of writing about food rights, I always felt like those accused could count on one thing: the legal protections of our legal system. There would be formal charges. The opportunity for bail. The guarantee of a trial by jury if you were charged with a felony. Access to legal assistance.
Over the last nearly two years, all such protections have been thrown out the window for immigrants legally in the U.S. I just wrote about a Ugandan man who has been held by ICE in a New Hampshire county jail for the last 19 months, without any formal charges, or opportunity for bail, or access to legal assistance. And within days, he could be deported….to a country he’s never heard of or had any connections to, and imprisoned there….once again without any charges having been filed. And this case is just the tip of the iceberg.
The dragnet for immigrants legally in the U.S. has become so out-of-control that large American farming organizations are begging for the authorities to back off. “These ICE operations are having a massive chilling effect on the legal, decomented skilled workers that put beef on the table,” said a recent joint statement from the Kansas Livestock Association, Oklahoma Cattlemen’s Association and Texas Cattle Feeders Association; in other words, immigrants are terrified to come to work for fear they’ll be picked up, thrown in jail, and forgotten. The constitution’s protections are much more than fancy legal concepts, they are what underlie the rule of law and we’re getting an unwelcome introduction to what life looks like without them.
ICE roundups are going quiet.
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/25/us/ice-surge-immigration-arrests.html
testing to see if post works.
Yes; seems to have been a problem earlier with comments, but hopefully it is corrected.
There are many of us formerly MAGAs who are equally appalled by the ICE activities. We expected that the thousands of immigrants who crossed the border over the last few years would be sent home. Instead, ICE went after immigrants who have lived here peacefully and productively, some for decades. It is sickening.
ICE creates and exploits fear and is manifestly FASCIST. The current regime checks every single box for Fascism. We are all numbed by the daily news and its ever mounting ever worsening corruption. Today it was the president using our tax dollars to pay for his campaign propaganda! It is outrageous…. but no consequences.
The good news is that the USA is going blue and this chapter is soon to be behind us. Vote like your life depends on it ! It’s the most patriotic thing you can do.
My presentation at the IMGC in Portland Oregon was warmly received. Peg Coleman was present and presented a POSTER at the event.
After I was finished with my presentation, I had several PhDs come up to me and say
“your talk opened my mind and changed my mind on raw milk standards for human consumption”. Three wanted a cup of raw milk that I had brought along for my talk.
The talk is now video recorded for milk researchers around the world to view.
One major focus of the conference was the discussion of breast milk banks and the pasteurization effects on breast milks. Some of the PhDs were pressing for other types of processing like HPP or UV because heat was so damaging to the critical elements and bioactives found in raw milk. Others approached me because they wanted to produce an FDA approved raw milk infant formula using my PCR pathogen tested raw milk. I told them YES…but I also told them that they needed to hire a bunch of lawyers and gather a huge number of other researchers for the fight. This was a political battle and not a nutritional or label issue. FDA approved baby formula and pasteurized breast milk are related to poor health outcomes for infants. Everyone knows it at IMGC!
It was a great conference.
One little personal IMGC side story:
There was a serious medical incident that occurred at the Portland 2026 IMGC conference. I was the first responder. Being a retired Paramedic, that is what I did for 16 years of my life. It happened literally 6 feet from where I was sitting. Suffice it to say…I brought calm, experience, a systematic protocol of treatment and complete assessment to an acutely very sick PhD. I was honored to be able to help. And it turned out well after some acute intervention, assessment and care.
In the IMGC closing remarks, the executive director officially thanked me at the podium for my help, compassion and organized calming care. What a collision of life experiences!!
I mention this because, I have been the only farmer to routinely attend the IMGC for the last 14 years. There I am in the middle of 120 PhDs. This time I was an invited speaker but also became a professional medical care provider. These PHDs are not medical doctors or EMS care providers. That is not a comfort zone for them. Some were pretty frazzled.
Talk about becoming personally really close to a whole bunch of important scientists….we now share a pretty intimate care event that hit really close to home for everyone.
I am their IMGC raw milk farmer and now their resident paramedic. Can’t make this stuff up!
I am deeply humbled and honored to be able to help and apply my experience gained by so many nights of no sleep on those 15,000 EMS calls years ago.
Next year the IMGC is in the Netherlands. I will definitely be there.
Mark
as far as “ICE is …manifestly Fascist” … have a look at the Fasces on each side of the Speaker’s Chair in the House of Representatives … the Republic has been that way since Day One. Read Tupper Saussy’s masterpiece “Rulers of Evil”
even if they’re being a tad overzealous, ICE is only doing what’s necessary … expelling untold Millions of warm bodies who’d crept on to US territory, illegally.
Donald Trump and his handlers were correct about that particular topic. Now carrying out the Will of The People who elected him to do so.
even the govt. of Gay North Dakota” * had to admit that the tidal wave of ILLEGAL immigrants, has overwhelmed the cities. A major factor in the tragedy of home-less-ness.
There is no justice in the world and there won’t be until people, and the governments they elect acknowledge and show respect for fundamental human rights. Unfortunately, there is a deep rooted might is right philosophy that exist and endorses violence against the unwanted or undesirable.
A case in point was made by Mother Teresa in a written statement she submitted to the United States Supreme Court in 1994 regarding abortion, “Human rights are not a privilege conferred by government. They are every human being’s entitlement by virtue of his humanity. The right to life does not depend, and must not be contingent, on the pleasure of anyone else, not even a parent or sovereign. … You must weep that your own government, at present, seems blind to this truth”.
And from her 1979 Nobel Peace Prize acceptance speech in Oslo, “Any country that accepts abortion is the poorest of the poor”.