Conor here: Trump’s failure to provide a viable, long-term solution for the immigration system is nothing new; it’s been that way for decades by design. We’ve written about how one potential scheme being pursued by the administration is to get rid of immigrant workers who don’t have their ability to remain in the country tied to their employer and replace them with more exploitable “guest” workers. There’s nothing in the following that contradicts that possibility, as a crisis could lead to more reliance on the guest worker program, but maybe attributing even that plot to the administration is being too generous. When we factor in the determination to cut meager SNAP benefits, perhaps the long term plan—if there actually is one— is simply for people to starve.
President Trump’s deportation of more than half a million people, along with his ending of several programs that allowed immigrants to work in the country legally, has created labor issues across the agriculture sector, including for farmers, an important political constituency.
While experts warned mass deportation would result in agricultural labor shortages, which could then lead to food shortages, Trump officials predicted U.S.-born workers would happily fill those vacant jobs. So far, that hasn’t happened.
There has also been a lack of movement by the Trump administration and his congressional allies toward creating a viable, long-term solution for the immigration system.
Corporate agriculture has often pursued lax safety standards, few labor protections and low wages. In many cases, only immigrants and undocumented workers are willing to toil long hours in extremely hot fields and to cut animal carcasses in hazardous meatpacking plants.
In recent months, to increase the number of farmworkers in the country, the administration has tinkered with the H-2A visa program, which allows some agricultural employers to hire foreign nationals for months at a time. The administration said it has streamlined the process to apply to bring workers to the U.S., and it’s trying to allow farmers to pay foreign visa workers less.
But full-scale reforms — the kind industry groups say are necessary — have not yet materialized, even as the administration ramps up immigration enforcement. Also, some agricultural industries, such as dairy, are not eligible to hire through the program.
“The H-2A program is not the sustainable solution, but it is a short-term solution,” said John Walt Boatright, the director of government affairs at the American Farm Bureau Federation, the leading farmer advocacy group. “I do foresee the H-2A program continuing to increase in use, but by no means is that a measure of its popularity.”
While the Trump administration is relying on the H-2A program to help a vital voting bloc, its approach to government funding has also created problems for those who need it.
As Trump and his congressional allies battled over federal funding with Democrats, the government shut down Oct. 1. That day, the U.S. Department of Labor, which oversees the H-2A program, said a funding lapse resulted in the program’s suspension.
“A prolonged lapse of funding,” the labor department stated in a notice, “will exacerbate processing delays … especially” for the H-2A program.
In mid-October, more than two weeks into the shutdown, the Florida Fruit and Vegetable Association sent a letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins saying the delays “imminently threaten agricultural production,” according to Civil Eats. The association did not respond to a request for comment.
While farmers are dealing with roadblocks to one labor source, the Trump administration continues to crack down on another.
Out of about 2 million farmworkers in the U.S., government surveys show about 44% are undocumented. Hundreds of thousands of others in the food supply chain — meatpacking plants, grocery stores, restaurants — are also undocumented.
Trump’s policies have also created more undocumented immigrants in the country. He ended humanitarian parole programs that allowed immigrants escaping unsafe environments to work in the U.S. The move left some meatpacking plants without a reliable labor pool.
Immigration raids, or the threat of them, have led to worker shortages across the country. In Pennsylvania, some dairy farmers, who often have to rely on undocumented laborers, have sold off their herds because they could not find any interested workers, according to Politico. In California this summer, some fields were not harvested because many workers stayed home, according to Reuters. In Idaho, similar concerns pervade farm country.
It’s difficult to know exactly how many undocumented farmworkers have left the labor force, but the country has seen a decline in immigrant workers overall. About 750,000 immigrants have left the labor force since January, the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan organization, estimated in August. The decline in the immigrant workforce is likely to reduce the overall labor force, which could harm the country’s economy, according to CNBC.
The cumulative effect of the Trump administration’s actions will likely lead to fewer small farms and a trend toward larger industrial-sized farms, which will have the ability to access visa workes and explore options for mechanization, said Mary Jo Dudley, former director of the Cornell Farmworker Program and current director of Migrant Advocacy and Support.
“As more people are detained, farms are going to lose workers,” she said. “Dairy producers who don’t have access to H-2A workers are faced with hard decisions: Should they just sell their cows if their workers are going to disappear any day? The possibilities for small family farms are quickly slipping away.”
Despite Farmer Concerns, Immigration Raids Continue
For months, Trump has said a solution is in the works. During a July 4 speech, he said, “We have some great stuff being written.”
However, Trump’s main goal and the platform he ran on — mass deportation — has always taken precedence.
Over the summer, Rollins pushed Trump to pause enforcement on farms, citing farmers’ concerns, according to the New York Times. A few days later, raids resumed. Stephen Miller, a top Trump aide, has told the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the home of ICE, it needs to arrest 3,000 people a day, according to Axios.
In mid-September, Tom Homan, Trump’s border czar, told local TV station WWNY that “there are discussions going on now” about raids affecting farm labor. But he made clear the increased enforcement would continue.
“President has said there won’t be amnesty,” Homan said. “But he is looking at options for farms.”
In early October, the administration itself acknowledged its immigration crackdown was causing worker shortages and, potentially, food shortages.
The acknowledgment is tied to how visa workers are paid. Farmers employing H-2A workers are supposed to pay what’s called the “adverse effect wage rate,” or AEWR. The rate is purposefully set above a state’s minimum wage to incentivize farmers to hire U.S. residents, not foreign nationals.
But in a proposed rule filed Oct. 2, the labor department argued the rate needs to be cut. That’s because the “current and imminent labor shortage exacerbated by the near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens, increased enforcement of existing immigration law, and global competitiveness pressures … presents a sufficient risk of supply shock-induced food shortages.”
The labor department did not respond to a request for comment on the statement in the proposed rule. When a spokeswoman was contacted via email, she said she’d have to wait to respond until the government shutdown was over.
Differing Views of Agriculture Labor Source
The labor secretary, Lori Chavez-DeRemer, said during a June speech the H-2A program will help solve farmers’ labor concerns, according to The Packer.
“I would love for Americans to want to do those jobs,” she said over the summer to the Western Governors Association. “I can just tell you, none of the Americans I know want to do some of these jobs.”
Her comment stands in contrast to other Trump officials, who have consistently said the objective is to replace immigrant farmworkers with U.S.-born workers. About two weeks after Chavez-DeRemer’s comments, Rollins contradicted her.
She said Medicaid participants, who often physically cannot work but now face expanded work requirements under a new Trump policy, would fill the gap left by immigrants.
“The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way, and we move the workforce towards automation and 100% American participation,” Rollins said, according to Politico. “With 34 million people, able-bodied adults on Medicaid, we should be able to do that fairly quickly.” (Before Rollins became agriculture secretary, she told Congress that labor shortages from increased enforcement were a “hypothetical” issue.)
When asked whether Rollins’ position had changed, given the Labor Department’s stance on the immigration crackdown, the USDA, in an unattributed comment, said Trump was “strengthening the farm workforce and streamlining” the H-2A program.
With Congress in Recess, No Deliberation on Possible Labor Solutions
The agriculture committee in the U.S. House of Representatives has studied the H-2A program, and last year it offered a template for reforms.
Currently, employers — or specialty firms that employers hire — must file paperwork with three federal departments to bring foreign farmworkers to the U.S. The committee recommended creating a single portal for employers to use. It also suggested lowering how much employers spend on wages and housing.
This summer, a bill was introduced based on the template, but it has not received a committee hearing.
The House has not convened since Sept. 19, and it’s unclear when it will resume. U.S. Rep. Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican and the body’s speaker, has faced criticism from his own party for the long delay, according to The Hill. While the House stands at recess, no reforms to the H-2A program can be debated or voted on.
With Republicans controlling both houses of Congress and the White House, Investigate Midwest contacted all 30 Republicans on the House agriculture committee to understand their perspective on how the shutdown is affecting a possible labor solution for farmers hurt by increased immigration enforcement.
However, most did not respond, and a few said they would not comment. The chair of the agriculture committee, Glenn “GT” Thompson, a Pennsylvania Republican, did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
DOL Creates New Office, Unclear If Old Issues Addressed
The Trump administration has sought to curtail other visas and legal statuses in its effort to severely limit the number of immigrants in the country, but it has backed expanding the H-2A program, which is only for agricultural employers.
In addition to ending humanitarian parole programs, the administration has proposed requiring employers who hire through the H-1B program to pay a $100,000 fee per application. H-1B holders are considered “highly skilled” immigrants who work in high-paying industries, such as tech. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has sued over the fee.
On the other hand, H-2A farmworkers are typically paid slightly more than minimum wage for jobs that don’t last long, and wage theft is a well-documented problem.
The Trump administration could be attempting to replace many undocumented farmworkers with foreigners who spend just months at a time in the U.S., said Daniel Costa, a lead immigration researcher at the nonpartisan Economic Policy Institute.
“Basically, they’re saying, ‘We want workers, but we don’t want people,’” he said.
This summer, the DOL created a new office it said would help increase the number of farmers participating in the H-2A program. However, it’s unclear how the office is addressing issues created by the program’s popularity.
During the June speech to governors of western states, Chavez-DeRemer, the labor secretary, said she was creating a “one-stop shop” for the H-2A program. The new office would help address a backlog of applications, as well as speed up approvals for farmers who need workers quickly, she said, according to The Packer.
“We’re finally going to lean in,” she said, “and then we’ll work with Congress on the longer-term issues of immigration reform as it needs to be addressed.”
The new office, named the Office of Immigration Policy, will set “strategic oversight,” “strategic management” and “strategic priority” for visa programs, according to Chavez-DeRemer’s memo.
The man tapped to run the office, Brian Pasternak, has worked as a civil servant at the labor department for more than 20 years. Most recently, he oversaw the Office of Foreign Labor Certification, which processes and approves H-2A visa applications submitted by employers.
Even before the current shutdown, the labor certification office struggled to keep pace with the increasingly high demand for H-2A workers, according to a 2024 Government Accountability Office report.
Staff members were shifted from their regular responsibilities to processing H-2A applications, which led to longer processing times for other visas. As the number of applications increased, regulators also dinged employers for fewer infractions, such as lacking proof of adequate housing, a longtime problem for farmworkers on visas.
Having enough staff was an issue before Trump assumed office, and it’s unclear if staffing cuts by Elon Musk’s DOGE affected the processing of H-2A applications.
The labor department lost about 1% of its workforce in DOGE’s initial purge, according to The New York Times, and more cuts could be coming during the government shutdown.
The labor department did not respond to a question about how many staffers handling H-2A applications were fired or took early retirement since January. It also did not respond when asked how it plans to handle the issues the Government Accountability Office identified.
The new office “will support President Trump’s efforts to prevent illegal immigration by helping employers access and navigate these programs – supporting legal pathways to work,” said Courtney Parella, a labor department spokeswoman. “By establishing the (Office of Immigration Policy), which reports directly to the Secretary, the Department is cutting red tape and streamlining its ability to execute immigration-related policy priorities and administer foreign labor certification programs.”
Boatright, with the American Farm Bureau, said the labor department’s new office holds a lot of promise. However, at least so far, little has changed on the ground.
“No news yet,” he said, “but we’re anxious to see what this Office of Immigration Policy can do.”
snap(and even WIC) suspended, medicaid curtailed, disability made even more difficult…and on and on.
it really does begin to feel like a passive culling of us “useless eaters” and raccoons.
and this belief, that people on medicaid and/or disability are faking it just chaps my ass.
as for americans not clamoring to be farm laborers…lol…nowhere in any of these statements do i see mention of pay and conditions…let alone the often feudal behavior by the bosses.
methinks it was a mistake to abandon the Humanities, all those years ago…
“nowhere in any of these statements do i see mention of pay and conditions”
It’s not mentioned where they advertise openings either.
“as lacking proof of adequate housing, a longtime problem for farmworkers on visas.”
Shows they aren’t interested in workers that would need to earn enough to afford their own house or apartment.
Some rats that need to be stomped want to tell people this is progress.
In many rural areas there is increasingly an affordable housing crisis too. We’ve been draining these communities of people for so long that many homes have been vacant for so long they are no longer habitable.
Mind you, once US citizens start starving because their SNAP has been cut off, they’ll have no option but to go and work as agrislaves, will they?
I can see a mass movement of poor people from the cities of the North to agriplantations in the South.
A sort of reverse civil war…
In 20 years of observing Big Ag here, I’ve never seen even 1 non-Hispanic (read Mexican) field worker, as in none.
amfortas:
The general lawlessness of the U S of A:
“Corporate agriculture has often pursued lax safety standards, few labor protections and low wages. In many cases, only immigrants and undocumented workers are willing to toil long hours in extremely hot fields and to cut animal carcasses in hazardous meatpacking plants.”
You don’t say. And the response from the Democratic Party and liberals has been to “reinvent” government so that OSHA hardly functions, the National Labor Relations Board is a relic, and wage&hours enforcement pretty much no longer exists. Ahhh, “pay and conditions,” it’s so darn yesteryear.
And there’s this:
“Out of about 2 million farmworkers in the U.S., government surveys show about 44% are undocumented. Hundreds of thousands of others in the food supply chain — meatpacking plants, grocery stores, restaurants — are also undocumented.”
Oh. It all happened by accident.
Some people in the U S of A are going to have to do some serious thinking about why the growing and distribution of food is so faulty and unhealthy. Meanwhile, living in Chicago, I recall the days when there were black waiters – who have more or less gone the way of the dodo. Restaurant people are constantly sniveling about turnover and not being able to get good help — except for that guy from Guatemala who is too scared to ask for a weekend off…
The whole article keeps trying to pretend that there is something normal about employers relying on “undocumented” (that is, easily disposed of, docile, and often uninformed) workers. How curious.
Using those on Medicaid as a labor pool of slaves. How curious.
For hundreds of years, the settlers of the U S of A have had this problem of, errrr, never having enough slave labor. How curious.
I spoke with a New England grower and some of the workers at his operation this past weekend. There are undocumented workers who’ve worked for him for 25yrs who are currently on their way back across the border to try to return to work with him under the H2a program. These are workers with families here in the US.
The grower is currently building housing for another dozen or so H2a workers for the next season. To his mind, H2a is the only solution that can provide stability for the foreseeable future.
They are getting ahead of the trucker shortage, Kristi Noem, who claims extensive experience driving 18-wheelers, is out there announcing that “illegals” are dangerous drivers who kill bus loads of nuns.
Okay, I added the part about nuns. But the new misinformation blast is that possibly unlicensed and drug-addled “illegals” are a danger on our highways and we are better off without them. We need drivers with Noem’s level of skill and experience.