In a document posted to the Federal Register this month amending regulations for certifying temporary foreign agricultural workers, the Department of Labor said the Trump administration's immigration policies could pose "immediate dangers" to the U.S. food supply.
The regulations involve changes to the H-2A visa program, which allows companies to bring in foreign nationals to fill agricultural jobs on a temporary or seasonal basis.
There are already signs the agricultural industry is struggling with employment. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that agricultural jobs fell to their lowest levels in more than a decade in May, although employment has rebounded slightly in recent months.
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The Labor Department noted that employers must pay what is known as the Adverse Effect Wage Rate, used to prevent foreign labor from undercutting the pay of local workers. The department updates this rate annually based on federal data.
But the Labor Department said poor methodology for setting such rates, combined with a current and imminent labor shortage — exacerbated by the near-total cessation of illegal immigration, increased enforcement of existing laws, and global competitiveness pressures — presents a sufficient risk of a supply shock-induced food shortage to justify immediate implementation of updated wages.
"Employers in the U.S. agricultural sector are facing a structural, not cyclical, workforce crisis driven by both the lack of an available legal workforce that is relatively mobile and able to adjust to changes in labor demands, as well as an ever-hastening loss of the mobile illegal alien workforce that had flowed in and out of the United States through a previously porous border," the Department of Labor memo says. "The near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens combined with the lack of an available legal workforce results in significant disruptions to production costs that threaten the stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S. consumers. Unless the department acts immediately to provide a source of stable and lawful labor, this threat will grow as the tools Congress provided in H.R. 1, One Big Beautiful Bill Act, to enhance enforcement of the nation's immigration laws are deployed."
As the Trump administration removes Medicaid and food assistance benefits from some Americans, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins suggested foreign agricultural workers could be replaced by Americans seeking work.
"There are 34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program. There are plenty of workers in America, but we just have to make sure we're not compromising today," she said.
But the Labor Department suggested American citizens are not willing or able to work in these positions.
"The supply of American agricultural workers is limited by a range of structural factors, including the geographic distribution of agricultural operations, the seasonal nature of certain crops, and the overall unemployment rate," the Department of Labor said. "Furthermore, agricultural work requires a distinct set of skills and is among the most physically demanding and hazardous occupations in the U.S. labor market. These essential jobs involve manual labor, long hours, and exposure to extreme weather conditions — particularly in the cultivation of fruit, tree nuts, vegetables, and other specialty crops for which production cannot be immediately mechanized. Based on the Department's extensive experience administering the H-2A temporary agricultural visa program, the available data strongly demonstrates a persistent and systemic lack of sufficient numbers of qualified, eligible and interested American workers to perform the kinds of work that agricultural employers demand."
According to government data, demand for H-2A visas increased 36% from 2020 through 2024. During that time, the government approved 97% of applications "based on a lack of qualified, eligible, and interested U.S. workers."
For the first 10 months of fiscal 2025, there were 320,700 applications for H-2A visas, with 99% approved.
