Foreign-born farm workers, fearing raids from ICE, are staying away from work. Many parts of the U.S. food chain, from farm to store, are breaking down, with crop losses, food waste, increasing poverty, and threats of farm closures. Nationwide an estimated 42% of the hired farm cropland workforce are undocumented, and 80% are foreign-born. Even the legal workers are afraid to go to work. In total, there are some 2.2 million hired farmworkers nationally.
The situation is extreme in California, which accounts for two thirds of U.S. domestically produced fruits and nuts, and a third of vegetables. One farm that would normally have 80 people in the fields, had only 17 in recent weeks. A sixth-generation farmer in Ventura County said, “If 70% of your workforce doesn’t show up, 70% of your crop doesn’t get picked and can go bad in one day. Most Americans don’t want to do this work. Most farmers here are barely breaking even.” In Texas, in the Rio Grande Valley, entire farms are left empty for days.
These accounts in the media, and similar reports from other states, signify sizable losses in the food supply. June is a peak month for field work. In the Fall come other harvests, orchard work, and so on. The labor crisis is not just in the fields, but also affects meatpacking, food processing plants, milking operations, barn–cleaning, and all manner of agriculture functions.
Farm groups have been appealing to the White House to stop the raids, and threats to work visas. On June 12 President Trump wrote on Truth Social that “Changes are coming!” to immigration enforcement in a few industries, including agriculture. However, on June 19 border czar Tom Homan stated that worksite enforcement would continue “even on farms and hotels.”
The President of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau issued [a statement June 18](https://pfb.com/pennsylvania-farm-bureau-statement-on-immigration-enforcement-on-farms/ appealing to Congress to make the H-2A visa program workable, to “secure our food system.” He stated, “Without a stable, dependable workforce, our fields will go unplanted, our crops unharvested, and our livestock uncared for.”
In New York, the [Alianza Agrícola](https://www.alianzaagricola.org/home
) speaking for farmworkers in the Central and Western part of the state, issued an open letter June 9 to the New York Farm Bureau, to join together with them in this crisis. It was titled, “We Are Essential Workers and We Deserve Justice.” Alianza Agricola farmworkers, “are the voices of those who sustain New York’s agricultural industry, especially dairy: immigrant workers who, day after day, feed, care for, and keep the agricultural economy alive.”
