The Trump administration’s hardline immigration insurance policies have led to office raids, public protests and disruptions inside the agriculture trade. Right here’s the newest:
July 18, 2025
Meat trade asks for pause on ICE raids
The American Affiliation of Meat Processors (AAMP) requested its members this week to foyer Congress for a pause on ICE raids inside the agriculture trade.
“Our trade, from farm to processor, depends closely on the immigrant workforce to have the ability to accomplish the work of feeding People,” stated Chris Younger, government director of AAMP in an electronic mail to its members. “We might additionally like so that you can ask them to unravel this long-term difficulty by engaged on true complete immigration reform, making the trail to citizenship simpler for individuals who are right here, contributing to society. Our immigration system is severely damaged, and Congress continues to kick the can down the highway. It’s time to repair this difficulty.”
July 17, 2025
WSJ: Some Republican lawmakers push to guard unauthorized immigrants
“When you attempt to deport all of them, you’re gonna crash the financial system,” U.S. Rep. Marlin Stutzman, an Indiana Republican, advised the Wall Road Journal this week. Stutzman was considered one of a number of Republican lawmakers who’ve raised rising concern over immigration enforcement actions focusing on farms and agriculture facilities.
“I’ve folks they name me. They’re like, ‘I’m undecided if my crew goes to point out up for work Monday morning, as a result of if there’s a raid, or one thing like that, proper?” stated Stutzman, who can also be a member of the Home Freedom Caucus.
July 11, 2025
California raid met with protestors
ABC7 information aired video of a July 10 conflict between federal brokers and demonstrators in California’s Ventura County following an immigration raid.
July 10, 2025
Border czar: ‘no amnesty’
Following President Trump’s latest statements that some undocumented staff on farms could possibly be allowed to remain within the nation, members of his cupboard have been rebuking the declare that the president is open to amnesty.
Trump’s border czar, Tom Homan, advised POLITICO on Thursday there shall be “no amnesty” for undocumented farm staff and that the administration is not going to “greenlight” companies “knowingly breaking immigration legal guidelines.”
“Nobody hires an unlawful alien out of the goodness of their coronary heart,” Homan stated. “They rent them as a result of they’ll work them more durable, pay them much less, and undercut their competitors with U.S. citizen staff. … And plenty of, many unlawful aliens don’t pay taxes. They’re paid beneath the desk. The employers don’t pay worker taxes, they don’t pay unemployment insurance coverage. So that they’re dishonest the system.”
July 3, 2025
Trump pushes program for undocumented farm staff
Throughout a rally in Iowa, President Trump continued to say he desires to permit undocumented staff to stay with many farmers.
“Farmers, they know higher, they work with them for years,” Trump stated Thursday afternoon. “We’ve started working with the farmers … we’re going to work with them, and we’re going to work very sturdy and good, and we’re going to put you in cost, make you accountable and I feel that’s going to make lots of people comfortable. Now, critical radical proper folks, who I additionally occur to love quite a bit, they may not be fairly as comfortable, however they are going to perceive.”
Trump stated Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins introduced issues to him about deportation raids hitting farms.
Thursday’s remarks didn’t comprise any particular coverage proposals, and Trump joked that he would possibly find yourself deporting some farmers.
“Let the farmers be accountable after which if the farmers don’t do a very good job we are going to throw them the hell in a foreign country. We are going to let the illegals keep and throw the farmer the hell out. So the faux information will write that: Donald Trump will throw farmers out of our nation, they are going to write it.”
July 2, 2025
California farms could possibly be hit onerous
Mass deportations of undocumented immigrants might value California’s San Joaquin Valley roughly 10% of the area’s complete gross home product, or about $19.2 billion, in accordance with a brand new research first reported by the Fresno Bee.
“It’s an trade that actually depends on immigrant labor to thrive, so on this area, elevated enforcement actions at work websites would possible damage agricultural workplaces,” Maria-Elena Younger, an assistant professor of public well being at UC Merced who led the research, advised the Bee. “Even enforcement at different forms of workplaces can have ripple results all through the neighborhood and in the end affect the agriculture trade.”
Learn extra on the Fresno Bee.
July 1, 2025
Trump: Undocumented farm staff might get ‘non permanent cross’
Trump has once more proposed a short lived cross for undocumented staff on farms and in meat-packing crops.
Trump mentioned that proposal throughout a Sunday interview. NBC Information reported on these remarks:
June 30, 2025
Watch: Iowa farmers worry elevated enforcement within the ‘close to future’
The Iowa Farmers Union is urging its members to raised perceive the authorized necessities they face if ICE brokers present up at their properties. In an interview with Iowa’s Information Now, a union official acknowledged that they count on elevated immigration enforcement in Iowa within the close to future.
June 26, 2025
Undocumented staff really feel betrayed by Trump immigration adjustments
Undocumented farm staff in California advised ABC 10 information they’re anxious about President Trump’s immigration insurance policies. They expressed confusion over Trump’s order to pause enforcement at farms, solely to return to raids at farms .
June 23, 2025
GRAPHIC: Hiring overseas visa staff skyrockets at meatpacking crops
The H-2B non permanent visa has historically been used to fill labor shortages in seasonal industries, such landscaping, hospitality and meals service. However the meatpacking trade has began to rent increasingly staff via this system, in accordance with U.S. Division of Labor information.
The H-2B’s sister program, the H-2A visa, is reserved for seasonal agriculture work, resembling selecting fruit and veggies. Some agricultural industries, resembling meatpacking crops and dairy farms, will not be eligible for the H-2A visa as a result of the work is year-round.
In 2015, simply six meatpacking crops have been granted H-2B visas by the federal authorities. Final yr, the quantity was 44 — a six-fold enhance.
Tyson Meals and Smithfield Meals, two of the most important meat processing corporations within the U.S., employed staff via the H-2B program final yr, in accordance with the newest information accessible. Seaboard Meals, which owns one of many largest meatpacking crops within the nation and relies in Oklahoma, has used this system for a number of years, the information reveals.
June 22, 2025
Texas ag commissioner: Farmers hit onerous by ICE enforcement
Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller stated federal immigration enforcement is hurting Texas farmers.
“They hear that ICE is coming … they only don’t present up, they’re scared to go to work,” Miller, a Republican, advised Fox 4 information in Dallas, referring to undocumented staff on Texas farms.
“Dairy farmers have been hit the toughest. If the crew doesn’t present up, these dairymen go into panic mode.”
June 18, 2025
South Omaha meatpacking plant raid
“It’s simply this overwhelming sense of helplessness,” stated Ron Hug, an Omaha councilmember, about final week’s ICE raid at a South Omaha meatpacking plant.
On June 10, a raid at Glenn Valley Meals included the arrest of a minimum of 74 of the plant’s practically 140 staff. South Omaha is a hub of meatpacking and immigrants, and the raid has put the neighborhood on edge.
As plant staff have been being arrested, some protestors gathered, as seen within the beneath video from the Nebraska Free Press. video beneath.
Learn extra concerning the South Omaha raid.
June 16, 2025
Senator: ‘This is able to be very dangerous for Wisconsin’
U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson, a Wisconsin Republican, stated his state’s dairy trade could be considerably harmed by ICE raids.
“That may be very dangerous for Wisconsin,” Johnson advised the Spokesman-Evaluate. “I feel there are sufficient criminals that they should spherical up.”
Democrats have lengthy criticized President Trump’s deportation efforts. However Republican lawmakers have began to talk up as raids have focused the agriculture sector.
“I feel the president, who has a mandate to deport folks right here illegally, additionally has a accountability to proceed to convey readability to how we’re going to prioritize completely different classes of undocumented individuals and their deportation, as a result of we don’t have limitless assets,” U.S. Sen. Todd Younger, an Indiana Republican, additionally advised the Spokesman-Evaluate. “That’s why I feel we have to set up priorities. As a result of within the absence of these, it’s onerous for someone like myself to argue that somebody right here illegally needs to be right here.”
June 14, 2025
Trump administration pauses farm raids
Earlier this week, President Trump acknowledged he’s acquired pushback from the agriculture sector over his immigration raids, which have focused farms and meatpacking crops. On Saturday, the New York Instances reported the administration is pausing its enforcement actions within the agricultural sector.
Officers with Homeland Safety Investigations have been advised to cease actions that concentrate on undocumented people not related to a recognized crime.
“Efficient in the present day, please maintain on all work web site enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (together with aquaculture and meat packing crops), eating places and working lodges,” Tatum King, a senior ICE official, wrote in a Thursday electronic mail.
June 12, 2025
Although they make up solely 3% of all H-2A staff, white South Africans are this system’s fastest-growing group. Lawsuits in Mississippi declare they’re employed over Black US staff and paid extra. The Division of Labor has confirmed allegations in dozens of circumstances. Learn extra right here.
June 11, 2025
The nation’s agriculture sector depends closely on undocumented staff.
The share of undocumented farmworkers — these with out authorized standing — dropped from 54% in 2020 to 42% in 2022, in accordance with the USDA and the U.S. Division of Labor.
April 28, 2025
Trump deportations have dairy farmers on edge
Many dairy farmers depend on immigrant laborers from Mexico or Central America, a lot of them with out authorization to work right here. Immigrant labor is significant in getting milk to market, whether or not it’s transferring cows via milking machines, caring for chores that milking robots nonetheless can’t do or trucking milk throughout the nation.
As Barn Raiser reported in April, the Trump administration’s aggressive stance on immigration has rattled many in an trade reliant on immigrant labor.
January 24, 2025
Ag secretary says meals points from mass deportations are ‘hypothetical’
Farmers have begun elevating issues concerning the potential affect of President Donald Trump’s mass deportations on their operations, however the president’s nominee for agriculture secretary, Brooke Rollins, stated any points stemming from a misplaced labor pressure are “hypothetical.” Learn extra right here.
