Leaders from agriculture and food industry groups are calling on the Trump administration to support immigration policies that protect skilled workers.
During a call with reporters Tuesday, Executive Director of Dairy Producers of New Mexico Beverly Idsinga described a farm’s I-9 audit earlier this month that resulted in the removal of more than half of its workforce by armed officers.
“You can’t turn off cows, they need to be milked twice a day, fed twice a day,” she says. “Labor is really tough anyway, and now it’s really difficult for him to run his dairy.”
She says a video of the raid was shared with House Agriculture Committee Republicans Glenn “GT” Thompson and Dan Newhouse, and likely led to the President’s call for an enforcement pause.
“Working with these members of Congress, it got all the way to President Trump by June 12th,” she says. “When he finally saw this video, that’s when he came out with the reversal of the directive and said that agriculture workers would not be deported.”
Kansas Livestock Association CEO Matt Teagarden says raids at farms and across packing plants are straining the food supply chain and could lead to higher prices.
“It really is clear to me that the people pushing for these raids that target farms and feed yards and dairies have no idea how farms operate,” he says. “To me, we have a choice here. We can use imported workers, or we can import our food.”
Maryland Republican Representative Andy Harris, chair of the House Freedom Caucus and chair of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Agriculture, was also part of the call hosted by the American Business Immigration Coalition.
“I think the administration’s coming to realize that to keep the economy going, we have to have a rational policy, which, as we’ve talked about, probably won’t include amnesty, but it will include the ability to retain workers in the United States to make sure that these industries keep going,” he says.
American Farm Bureau Federation and National Council of Farmer Cooperatives leaders also say they’re concerned focused immigration enforcement will resume on farms and ranches and further strain producers.
Farmworker Justice CEO Ron Estrada says ceasing ICE raids on farms is critical to safeguarding the nation’s food security, and passing legislation like the Farm Workforce Modernization Act would provide a pathway to permanent status for undocumented farmworkers.
Leaders say they’re hopeful internal dialogue within the administration leads to an opportunity to develop policy to protect the border and skilled workers.
