Trump’s deportations are causing farm labor issues. He hasn’t presented a viable, long-term solution.

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.

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“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 percent are undocumented. Hundreds of thousands of others in the food supply chain — meatpacking plants, grocery stores, restaurants — are also undocumented.

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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 workers 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.

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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 U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, 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.

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“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 percent 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.

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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.

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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.

Download: Memorandum-Office-of-Immigration-Policy.pdf

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 percent 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.”

Investigate Midwest is an independent, nonprofit newsroom. Its mission is to serve the public interest by exposing dangerous and costly practices of influential agricultural corporations and institutions through in-depth and data-driven investigative journalism. Visit them online at www.investigatemidwest.org