‘They're part of the family': A Vermont dairy farmer fears being separated from a family of migrant workers

Boston Globe

4 days ago

Morin hired Bernardo and her partner out of necessity. He couldn't find Americans willing to milk his cows, raise his calves, and shovel out the barn — physically demanding work with long hours and modest wages. Over time, the relationship between the self-described conservative farmer and his migrant workers has deepened.
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'I consider them more than just employees,' he said. 'They're part of the family.'
Farmer John Morin and his partner, Lynn Beede, had lunch with Wuendy Bernardo's family at home in Orleans County, Vt., on July 10.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
The feeling is mutual. As Bernardo's 17-year-old daughter let out the family's chickens one muggy morning this week, she described Morin and his partner, Lynn Beede, in similar terms.
'They are like our grandparents,' she said. 'They care about us.'
But this blended family could soon be pulled apart. Bernardo, who was apprehended after illegally crossing the southern border in 2014, has been required ever since to make periodic check-ins with immigration authorities. Since President Trump took office, those appointments have become more frequent, and the stakes have felt much higher. Her next one is Monday.
'Each time I go back, it's with the same fear,' the 33-year-old Bernardo said through an interpreter last week, seated at Morin's dining room table. 'When I walk into that building, it's with the thought that I might not be able to go home, and I might not be able to see my children.'
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Morin — a Carhartt-clad man with gray facial stubble and kind eyes — also dreads the check-ins.
'If I lose my workers, I'm going to be done,' he said. 'What am I gonna do? Hire more migrant workers and worry about losing
them
?'
Bernado's children played outside the barn on the dairy farm in Orleans County, Vt., on July 10. Bernardo and her partner have lived and worked on the farm for over a decade with their family.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
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Will Lambek of Migrant Justice comforted Wuendy Bernardo after discussing her immigration situation on July 10.
(Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff)
Bernardo milked a cow during an early morning shift at the farm in Orleans County, Vt., on July 11.
(Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff)
When Morin was growing up, there were dozens of farms in these parts. He and his siblings would milk his father's 50 cows before and after school, and bale hay in the summers.
Most of those farms are now gone. The ones that remain are far larger and rely less on family labor.
Throughout the state, an estimated 750 to 850 migrant farmworkers, mostly from Mexico and Guatemala, constitute
'There aren't a lot of people growing up into farming anymore,' Morin said. 'It's very hard to find American help that will actually milk the cows, work in the barns.'
Margins in the industry have grown tighter as the price farmers get for milk hasn't kept pace with rising costs.
'I'm surviving, but I'm not gonna lie: It's hard financially,' said Morin, who bought the family farm from a brother. 'Of the 20 years I've been farming, I've probably had three good years.'
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Bernardo's 18-year-old sister helped John Morin collect a calf and its mother on his dairy farm.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
Bernardo's children cast shadows on a garage at the dairy farm where they live and work.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
Of Vermont's 14 counties, Orleans was one of two Trump won in 2024. But Morin says there's a growing, if quiet, discontent among local farmers.
'I think a lot of people are not happy at all,' he said. 'We have to worry about weather. We have to worry about the price of milk fluctuating. And now we gotta worry about losing our help. We're just trying to make a living and feed the country.'
Morin said he voted for Trump in 2016 'against my better judgment,' but backed the Democratic nominees in 2020 and 2024.
'I consider myself conservative, but I don't consider this administration conservative,' he said, emphasizing the importance of family values. 'You don't treat people like they're doing.'
In recent months, rival factions within the Trump administration
A Trump 2028 flag was posted on a hill in Orleans County, Vt., near Morin's farm.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
US Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins, until recently
ICE did not respond to questions from the Globe about her case, or about its current posture toward migrant farmworkers.
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Bernardo and her partner have five children, from 5 to 17, and also care for two of her orphaned half-sisters, ages 15 and 18. The family members have a range of immigration and citizenship statuses.
It is a hard life of long days. Most mornings, Bernardo and her partner start milking Morin's 125 cows at 4:30 a.m., and again at 3 p.m. before letting them out for the night. In between, they do other farm and household chores and spend time with their kids.
Morin's farm is smaller than most and lacks a modern 'milking parlor' that would allow the cows to come to centralized machines. Instead, Bernardo and her partner walk up and down three rows of cows in the barn, disinfecting their udders and attaching mobile milkers one by one.
Bernardo and her 15-year-old half-sister made dinner at their home in their kitchen upstairs.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
Bernardo fed a calf on the dairy farm on July 11.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
The younger children also help feed the calves, and the older ones take the occasional milking shift. Days off are vanishingly rare because, no matter what, the cows have to be milked.
But sometimes life gets in the way. When their 10-year-old son had appendicitis this spring, Bernardo and her partner stayed by his bedside for three weeks at a hospital in Burlington, while Morin took over some of their dairy duties.
'John was the one who picked up the slack, and they also helped care for the family,' Bernardo said.
In better times, Morin and Beede share meals with Bernardo's family, ply the kids with snacks, wait for them at the bus stop, and take them to town. The children love his cat and her dogs.
Bernardo and her partner took a walk on the farm with two of their children after a second round of milking cows on July 11.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
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Bernardo's 15-year-old half-sister said a prayer before having breakfast with her family.
(Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff)
Bernardo's daughters played in their bedroom before breakfast.
(Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff)
Occasionally the younger kids call down from their upstairs apartment to ask if they can come down to play or watch a movie.
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'Kids give life purpose. They give life meaning,' Beede said. 'I think that's what Wuendy and her family do in our lives.' Without them, 'It would be a very lonely existence for us, with very little purpose.'
According to Dan Kurzman, a longtime friend of Morin's: 'He adopted that family — and they've adopted him.'
Upstairs, the family of nine shares close quarters: a cramped kitchen and common area, one bedroom for the parents, and two more packed with bunkbeds. Several balloons in the kids' bedrooms last week marked the recent high school graduation of Bernardo's oldest half-sister.
'It feels exciting,' the 18-year-old said. 'My first graduation.'
'As a mother, that's what I hope for all of my kids,' Bernardo said. 'I hope to see them all graduate.'
Bernardo's children played outside the barn while their parents work on the dairy farm.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
The children have typical aspirations, of becoming a nurse, or a veterinarian, another an attorney, another a dentist, Bernardo said. They attend local schools, which the older kids say they prefer to long, slow summers on the farm, when they must concoct their own entertainment.
'We go to the river and spend time there when days are hot,' the 13-year-old said. 'And I think that's all.' (To protect their privacy, Bernardo asked that her children not be named.)
Over a breakfast of homemade tortillas filled with pork sausage, spinach, and Vermont cheddar cheese, Bernardo's partner said he wished more Americans understood that all he and his family are looking for is a better life.
'We do the dirty work they don't want to do. We are not criminals. We are supporting our kids. We are part of the economy of the United States,' he said. 'That's all we do: work and feed our family.'
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He said he felt nervous about Bernardo's looming check-in.
'I always try to stay positive and think everything will be all right,' he said. 'But with this administration, you never know.'
Bernardo sat with her cup of coffee after having breakfast with her family. Her day started at 4:30 a.m. with the first of two shifts milking cows.
Craig F. Walker/Globe Staff
At Bernardo's last appointment with ICE, on June 20, crowds of supporters gathered outside the agency's office in St. Albans to protest her potential deportation. After a half hour she
reappeared. She'd been told to return in a month.
Morin, who had driven Bernardo and three of her children to the appointment, waited for her outside, fuming.
'This is not American,' he said. 'I wear the American flag. I support the Constitution. I support our troops that have fought for this country, that make this country free. What's going on in this country — it's not humane.'