{"id":7598,"date":"2025-11-24T12:00:17","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T18:00:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/westplexnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/24\/trump-allows-more-foreign-ag-workers-eases-off-ice-raids-on-farms-2\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T12:00:17","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T18:00:17","slug":"trump-allows-more-foreign-ag-workers-eases-off-ice-raids-on-farms-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/westplexnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/24\/trump-allows-more-foreign-ag-workers-eases-off-ice-raids-on-farms-2\/","title":{"rendered":"Trump allows more foreign ag workers, eases off ICE raids on farms"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Farmworkers<\/p>\n

Farmworkers gather produce near Hemet, Calif. The Trump administration is making it easier for farmers to employ guest workers from other countries. (Photo by Mario Tama\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

In a tacit admission that U.S. food production requires foreign labor, the Trump administration is making it easier for farmers to employ guest workers from other countries.<\/p>\n

At the same time, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in recent months appears to be refraining from conducting agricultural workplace raids, even as it scours Democratic-led cities for immigrants who are in the country illegally.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe really haven\u2019t seen agriculture targeted with worksite enforcement efforts, and early this year we did,\u201d said Julia Gelatt, associate director of U.S. immigration policy at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.<\/p>\n

The shifts come as many Americans are concerned about the rising cost of food, creating political problems for a president who campaigned on lowering them. Last week, the administration also announced <\/a>it would lift tariffs on some foreign food products, including bananas, beef, coffee and tomatoes.<\/p>\n

To ease labor shortages on farms and ranches, the administration last month made changes to the federal H-2A visa program, which allows employers to hire foreign workers for temporary agricultural jobs when there aren\u2019t enough U.S.-born workers available. Under the new rule<\/a>, the Department of Homeland Security will approve H-2A visas more quickly.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur immigration system has been broken for decades, and we finally have a President who is enforcing the law and prioritizing fixing programs farmers and ranchers rely on to produce the safest and most productive food supply in the world,\u201d the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in an email to Stateline.<\/p>\n

But the move to increase the supply of foreign agricultural workers conflicts with a July statement <\/a>by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins that \u201cthe promise to America, to ensure that we have a 100% American workforce, stands.\u201d<\/p>\n

Rollins also said the administration was committed to the mass deportation of immigrants who are here illegally, but that it would be \u201cstrategic so as not to compromise our food supply.\u201d Ultimately, she said, the solution would be increased automation of agricultural jobs.<\/p>\n

The government has issued about 420,000 H-2A visas for agricultural workers every year since 2023, which amounts to about half of the 812,000 agricultural worker jobs. They are concentrated in states that grow fruits and vegetables as opposed to grains, which are increasingly planted and harvested using machines. The government expects an additional 119,000 visas to be issued under the new rule.<\/p>\n

Almost half the H-2A visas in the 2025 fiscal year were in Florida (60,000), Georgia (44,000), California (37,000), Washington state (36,000) and North Carolina (28,000).<\/p>\n

Lower wages<\/h4>\n

The new H-2A rule also includes new hourly wage guidelines that vary by state<\/a> but are lower than previous wages, and allows employers to charge workers for housing that used to be free. In North Carolina, for instance, the new rate is $11.09 for unskilled workers compared with $16.16 last year. In California, the rate is $13.45 for unskilled workers compared with $19.97 last year, though minimum wage laws in California and some other states would apply to those jobs, according to a Cornell University analysis<\/a>.<\/p>\n

In North Carolina, farmers are looking forward to lower labor costs, said Lee Wicker, deputy director of the North Carolina Growers Association, a trade association that brought 11,000 guest workers to the state through the H-2A guest worker program last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf you think farmers are making more money in these conditions, you\u2019re wrong. They\u2019re going broke,\u201d Wicker said. Workers will take a pay cut under new guidelines and will have to pay for housing, but that may help farmers stave off bankruptcy, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019m not saying the workers are going to be happy about this, but I think they\u2019ll come back. Wages have gone down before and they kept coming,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Jeffrey Dorfman, an agricultural and resource economics professor at North Carolina State University, said the changes will be a boon to the state\u2019s farmers.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe move to lower the H-2A wages by the Trump administration will be very well received by growers in North Carolina and will save farmers tens of millions of dollars statewide,\u201d Dorfman said. \u201cFor many farmers, it will turn money-losing crops into money-making crops, if prices stay about where they are now.\u201d<\/p>\n

Unionized California farmworkers are opposed to the pay cuts and loss of free housing in the new guest worker visa plan, said Antonio De Loera-Brust, a spokesperson for the United Farm Workers, which represents about 10,000 workers in California.<\/p>\n

\n
<\/div>\n
\n

First came the raids, which hurt workers, and now in order to appease business interests, they make all these concessions on wages and the guest workers program.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

\n

\u2013 Antonio De Loera-Brust, United Farm Workers<\/b><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

The union sued the administration over ICE raids in the fields earlier this year, but recently \u201cit\u2019s been pretty quiet,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor us it\u2019s been really a one-two punch,\u201d De Loera-Brust said. \u201cFirst came the raids, which hurt workers, and now in order to appease business interests, they make all these concessions on wages and the guest workers program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fewer raids<\/h4>\n

The administration quickly walked back a June directive to avoid raids on the agriculture and hospitality industries. Nevertheless, ICE raids on those employers have been more infrequent in the months since.<\/p>\n

In June, ICE raided a dairy farm<\/a> in New Mexico and a meatpacking plant<\/a> in Nebraska. Since then, the agency has raided only a handful of food and agriculture employers, such as a July raid on a California marijuana grower<\/a> and an Arizona restaurant chain<\/a>, and a September raid<\/a> to arrest Wisconsin dairy workers.<\/p>\n

Earlier this month, ICE agents descended on an onion farm in Northern California, arresting four immigrants on charges of illegally selling farmworker visas.<\/p>\n

Even as ICE ramps up its activity in North Carolina cities such as Charlotte and Raleigh, Wicker, of the growers trade group, said farms in the state have not been targeted.<\/p>\n

Gelatt, of the Migration Policy Institute, said that\u2019s been true of farms and ranches in many states since June.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn past administrations we\u2019ve seen a very quiet de-emphasis of immigration enforcement at farms. You don\u2019t need to make an announcement. You don\u2019t need to fight in the courts,\u201d Gelatt said. \u201cIt is possible just to direct enforcement activities away from farms. It\u2019ll be hard to know if that\u2019s happened now, but I would not be surprised.\u201d<\/p>\n

While farmworkers in California are seeing some relief from raids, life is still uneasy for them, De Loera-Brust said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOverall, they have clearly slowed down [raids] in ag areas, but that\u2019s not policy. They could resume at any time. People are living with uncertainty,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at\u00a0thenderson@stateline.org<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

\n

This story was originally produced by Stateline<\/a>, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Missouri Independent, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.<\/p>\n<\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Farmworkers gather produce near Hemet, Calif. The Trump administration is making it easier for farmers to employ guest workers from other countries. (Photo by Mario Tama\/Getty Images) In a tacit admission that U.S. food production requires foreign labor, the Trump administration is making it easier for farmers to employ guest workers from other countries. At…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7599,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kadence_starter_templates_imported_post":false,"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7598","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nTrump allows more foreign ag workers, eases off ICE raids on farms - WestplexNews.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/westplexnews.com\/index.php\/2025\/11\/24\/trump-allows-more-foreign-ag-workers-eases-off-ice-raids-on-farms-2\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Trump allows more foreign ag workers, eases off ICE raids on farms - WestplexNews.com\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Farmworkers gather produce near Hemet, Calif. 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