The anti-immigrant furor that has swept the country ignores some basic facts. Here’s one: A huge percentage of the food on our plates and in our grocery aisles is there thanks to immigrant labor. Wisconsin dairy farms are only part of the picture. Meat-packing and processing facilities rely heavily on immigrants. If you want to know who’s processing the meat we eat, read up a bit on communities like Garden City, Kansas, where the meat-packing giant Tyson is located. The majority of the residents there are immigrants, from places like Burma, Vietnam, Somalia, Ethiopia and, of course, Mexico and Central America. Garden City leaders and residents have mostly embraced the diversity over the years, but the current anti-immigrant furor has changed some of that.

As for the tomatoes, green peppers and cucumbers we eat, they're likely from the hands of immigrants. On a recent visit to Sacramento, California, I encountered a long line of immigrant workers outside a federal building. They were there for a regular check-in, one of them told me. Soon, many would return to the vast farm fields of the Central Valley to pick and prepare for shipping the food that fuels America.

Agriculture is by no means the only industry that relies on immigrant help. Who made your most recent hotel bed?