HOOPERS ISLAND, Md. — There’s something new that has reached this desolate, weathered chain of Chesapeake Bay islands, and it’s starting to choke the watermen’s way of life.
It’s fear.
And that fear is endangering the centuries-old ecosystem around the crab business on these islands.
Nearly half of the Eastern Shore’s crab houses have lost the temporary workers, mostly from Mexico, who come every season to pick crabs, the Baltimore Sun reported last week. The businesses couldn’t get visas for the crab pickers because the Trump administration awarded them by lottery this year, instead of on a first-come, first-serve basis.
Just one month into crabbing season, everyone here is feeling it. The guy who builds the crab pots, the bait fishermen, the crabbers, the crab house suppliers, the little roadside crab shack, the local general store, the waterman’s wife who can’t afford to stay home with the kids anymore — all of them are in trouble thanks to the fear of immigrants that helped elect President Trump and is now shaping the administration’s hard-line approach toward legal and illegal immigration.
