"To Address Farm Labor Shortage, Trump Administration Turns to Migrant Workers," by Linda Qiu @YLindaQiu, #nytimes
The administration is making it cheaper for farmers to hire immigrant farmworkers on temporary visas.
Immigration hawks and labor unions alike are opposed, arguing the move will only increase the share of foreign workers and hurt native workers and suppress their wages.
Only 0.4 percent of farmers in California reported losing workers directly to farm raids, according to a new survey by the California Farm Bureau and Michigan State University.
Under the new changes, the Labor Department adjusted how wages paid to H-2A farmworkers are calculated, effectively lowering hourly rates by between $1 and $7 depending on the state, according to some estimates.
The reduction in wages has prompted a lawsuit from the United Farm Workers of America, which represents thousands of field workers. It argues that the rule will adversely harm American farmworkers by lowering their wages as well or pushing them out of the labor pool entirely.
“These actions are going to displace domestic farmworkers who have been working in the fields and putting food on dinner tables for decades, and bring a workforce that is even more vulnerable to abuse,” Teresa Romero, the president of the union, said in an interview, noting that H-2A workers are often exploited and trafficked.
In 2025, only 182 of more than 415,000 advertised positions received a domestic applicant.
The number of certified H-2A visa positions has risen sharply, to nearly 400,000 in the 2025 fiscal year from about 50,000 in 2005.
(About 40 percent of crop workers are unauthorized migrants and about a third are American citizens, according to the latest government estimates.)
The Economic Policy Institute, a left-leaning think tank, estimated that the methodological changes would result in a $2 billion cut to the annual wages of guest farmworkers — and a $3 billion cut for U.S.-based farmworkers.
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