Migrant Justice Justicia Migrante

10/3/17 Update: 

Migrant Justice and Ben & Jerry's sign historic agreement!

"The first time I saw my dad after eight years apart, I couldn’t believe how much he had aged. When he had left our home in Mexico to come to the United States, he was still a young man. After eight years of toiling on a Vermont dairy farm—sending money home so my siblings and I could go to school—his face looked weathered, worn, and tired."

You have to check out this must-read history of the Milk with Dignity campaign and Vermont farmworker's fight for human rights, written by former dairy worker and community leader Enrique "Kike" Balcazar!  Now on the front page of popular food magazine Civil Eats, Kike's essay charts his path from coming to Vermont at 17 years old to join his father on a dairy farm, to marching on the Ben & Jerry's factory tomorrow, to demand that the company make good on its two-year-old commitment to join dairy worker's Milk with Dignity program.

This May Day, hundreds came together in Burlington for a beautiful and powerful “March for Dignity.” The action coincided with marches, rallies, and strikes across the country and around the world on International Workers' Day.  The streets echoed with chants calling on Ben & Jerry’s to make good on its June 19, 2015 commitment to source its milk in compliance with the the human rights of dairy workers: “Get up! Get down! Milk with Dignity’s comin’ to town!”

Outside company’s flagship store, Migrant Justice leader David Diaz called the ice cream maker to task for two years of delay in joining the Milk with Dignity program: 

“Listen up Ben and Jerry’s because the people are rising up. I am a dairy worker and I know the conditions in the industry; I know what it is to suffer in your supply chain. Thanks to the hard work of farmworkers -- the workers who are putting the cream in Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream -- you are making a delicious product sold around the world. But it is a product made without dignity."

Marchers delivered thousands of postcards to the company, taped together in a 150-yard-long chain that extended for a full city block, demanding that Ben & Jerry’s sign the Milk with Dignity program.

Read the full story and see more pictures here!

This Tuesday April 4th, thousands of customers waiting in line outside Ben & Jerry's scoop shops during the company's famed Free Cone Day got their ice cream with a bitter dose of truth.

At more than 10 scoop shops around the country -- from Nashville, to Naples, to New York -- dairy workers and supporters pulled the mask off the corporation's socially responsible marketing to expose the conditions faced by workers putting the cream in Ben & Jerry's ice cream.

Enrique Balcazar, recently freed from prison after being targeted by deportation agents for his outspoken leadership, spoke at the factory store in Waterbury:

I have worked on dairy farms across the state, just like my mother and father before me, and I know better than anyone the conditions that we workers face.  I would work from 3am through the day and night, oftentimes without 8 hours of consecutive rest, seven days a week.  Nearly half of us don't even make minimum wage! That is why we are here today, calling on Ben & Jerry's to make good on its commitment to join the Milk with Dignity program, ensuring respect for the human rights of the workers who milk their cows.

Wilmar Santiz, a dairy worker and member of Migrant Justice's Farmworker Coordinating Committee, told customers in Burlington, VT: "We are here today demanding that Ben & Jerry's join the Milk with Dignity program. We invite everyone to unite with us -- because the time to sign is now!"

Thousands show support for detained human rights leaders in Vermont

Immigrant leaders of Migrant Justice targeted by ICE for arrest

Burlington, VT. Agents with Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) have arrested three immigrant members of the Vermont-based human rights organization Migrant Justice within the past week.

Jose Enrique “Kike” Balcazar Sanchez, 24, and Zully Palacios Rodriguez, 23, were surrounded by four undercover ICE vehicles soon after leaving the Migrant Justice office in Burlington on Friday afternoon. Migrant Justice organizers arrived on the site of the arrest in time to see the two being loaded into separate vans and driven away.

“They are targeting our community’s leaders,” said Migrant Justice organizer Abel Luna.

The detention came two days after agents arrested dairy worker Cesar Alexis Carrillo Sanchez, 23, outside the Chittenden County courthouse Wednesday morning. At the time, Mr. Carrillo, known as Alex, was accompanied by his wife, Lymarie Deida, a U.S. citizen.  The two have a four-year-old daughter together.

Said Ms. Deida of her husband’s arrest: “When they arrested Alex, they took away a father, a husband, a human being.”