The Trump administration’s hardline immigration policies have led to workplace raids, public protests and disruptions within the agriculture industry. Here’s the latest:
🚨 Trump said he will release new rules and regulations soon on migrant farm labor. Trump said that his administration will continue to deport criminals but that he wants to “work with” farmers to find a solution for their workers. (Politico)
🚨 Federal immigration raids in California have caused a 3.1% dip in the state’s workforce, according to a new study from researchers at UC Merced. (Investigate Midwest)
🚨 Over 500,000 immigrants have lost work authorization under Trump, squeezing the agriculture sector and likely driving up food prices. (Investigate Midwest)
⏱️ Three-minute read: How we got here.
The nation’s agriculture sector relies heavily on undocumented workers.
The percentage of undocumented farmworkers — those without legal status — was estimated to be at 42% in 2022, according to the USDA and the U.S. Department of Labor.
The ag and meat industries also use many workers on government visas, a program that has surged in recent years.
Trump entered his second term directing immigration enforcement officers to deport more individuals, and in June, that effort began to impact agriculture and meatpacking operations.
Immigration enforcement officers raided fields in California and a meatpacking plant in Omaha.
Many leaders in the agriculture sector said the raids were making it hard for the food system to hire enough workers.
“They hear that ICE is coming … they just don’t show up, they are scared to go to work,” Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller, a Republican, told Fox 4 news in Dallas, referring to undocumented workers on Texas farms.
In response, Trump proposed a temporary pass for undocumented workers on farms and in meat-packing plants.
“Farmers, they know better, they work with them for years,” Trump said in a July speech. “We’ve got to work with the farmers … we are going to work with them, and we are going to work very strong and smart, and we are going to put you in charge, make you responsible and I think that’s going to make a lot of people happy. Now, serious radical right people, who I also happen to like a lot, they might not be quite as happy, but they will understand.”
But a few days later, Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, told POLITICO there will be “no amnesty” for undocumented farm workers and that the administration will not “greenlight” businesses “knowingly breaking immigration laws.”
“No one hires an illegal alien out of the goodness of their heart,” Homan said. “They hire them because they can work them harder, pay them less, and undercut their competition with U.S. citizen employees."
Reports of raids at farms and meatpacking plants have slowed, but not ended. And there have been no announced policy changes from the Trump administration.
Republican lawmakers have increasingly called for changes to Trump's immigration policies that would allow workers to remain on farms and at plants.
“If you try to deport all of them, you’re gonna crash the economy,” U.S. Rep. Marlin Stutzman, an Indiana Republican, told the Wall Street Journal.
