Inside the Chinese-funded and staffed marijuana farms springing up across the U.S.

Last summer, New Mexico state special agents inspecting a farm found thousands more cannabis plants than state laws allow. Then on subsequent visits, they made another unexpected discovery: dozens of underfed, shell-shocked Chinese workers.

The workers said they had been trafficked to the farm in Torrance County, N.M., were prevented from leaving and never got paid.

“They looked weathered,” says Lynn Sanchez, director of a New Mexico social services nonprofit who was called in after the raid. “They were very scared, very freaked out.”

They are part of a new pipeline of migrants leaving China and making unauthorized border crossings into the United States via Mexico, and many are taking jobs at hundreds of cannabis farms springing up across the U.S.

An NPR investigation into a cluster of farms, which the industry calls cannabis “grow” operations, in New Mexico found businesses that employ and are managed and funded largely by Chinese people. They’re seeking opportunities in a flourishing U.S. cannabis market after the coronavirus pandemic led to a global economic crisis. But some of the businesses have run afoul of the law, even as states such as New Mexico have legalized marijuana. [Read more at NPR]