ALBUQUERQUE — Leaders of minority farm and ranching groups took aim at the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Wednesday, saying the agency hasn’t done enough to address decades of discrimination and civil rights violations against Latinos and women.
The groups outlined concerns about dozens of civil rights violations in New Mexico and Colorado and the agency’s process for settling discrimination claims among Latinos and women during a news conference as the National Latino Farmers and Ranchers Trade Association kicked off its annual meeting in Albuquerque.
They said claims filed by Latinos and women as part of a $1.3 billion settlement with the USDA have been denied at much higher rates than those of other minority groups, including black and American Indian farmers who settled with the government after separate class-action lawsuits.
“We’ve got a systemic problem here with the settlement-claims process,” said David Sanchez, a northern New Mexico rancher who helped organize the meeting. “It appears it’s a numbers game, and it can’t go ignored any longer.”
The USDA said Wednesday it had no role in adjudicating any of the claims. That duty fell to an independent contractor to ensure the integrity of the process, the agency said.
The agency has previously acknowledged its “unfortunate and checkered history” with regards to civil rights, saying it has been working toward a cultural transformation within the agency.
John Zippert, who works with The Federation of Southern Cooperatives Land Assistance Fund, said he personally helped hundreds of black farmers submit claims of racial discrimination as part of a similar case in the late 1990s, and most of those claims were approved. That hasn’t been the case with Latinos and women, he said.
Of the more than 53,000 claims submitted, Zipper said just over 3,200 were approved. More than half were found not to be timely or complete, and the government took issue with more than 10,000 claims over fraud concerns that included too many claims being filed in the same community.
