lIn the spring, Carmelo Mendes had pruned a Colorado peach tree on a temporary visa and stopped his children and wife from returning home, but is excited about how his $17.70 wage will improve their lives. This spring, he is returning to Tlaxcala, Mexico, looking for Facebook for work on one of the thousands of farms in the US that primarily employ guest workers like him.
Mendes is one of more than 300,000 foreign farm workers who come to the United States each year on an H-2A visa, allowing them to temporarily work crops from Washington to Georgia, Florida, Texas, New York and California. However, as federal immigration policies change rapidly, farmers and workers are alike uncertain about their future.
“I think that without (this guest worker program), agriculture in the US will decline drastically because the people there don’t want to work,” Mendes said.
With the fate of hundreds of thousands of undocumented farm workers still in the midst of the threat of Donald Trump’s deportation and the administration’s H-2A policy remains undecided, the future of these guest workers remains unknown. Their numbers increase every year. And they are becoming the centre of an industry dominated by historically undocumented workers. The industry is not creating new jobs either.
Farmers agree with farm workers like Mendes. They say they cannot attract other workers to the countryside fields.
The debate over guest workers is splitting Republican support. Jonathan Berry, who was appointed as a lawyer for the Department of Labor, wrote about labor support for Project 2025. That section advocates replacing H-2A workers with local workers and automation. Although technology can replace some specific farm tasks, many crops still rely primarily on human labor, and smallholder farmers say they can’t afford to invest in equipment that could take more than a decade to be rewarded. Other co-authors of chapters such as Economist Oren Cass do not believe that work should be eliminated, but farmers need to improve their working conditions to attract citizens instead.
Meanwhile, Trump’s power relies on a coalition that includes the farming community that voted for him in 2024 by almost 80%, according to a survey by journalism nonprofit Midwest. Agribusiness has also donated more than $24 million to his reelection. Farm groups argue that US citizens don’t want to do difficult labor, and that eliminating H-2A workers could potentially disrupt the food system. They generally advocate for loosening regulations for H-2A workers, such as reducing wages and housing requirements. Trump listened to their phone before. In 2019, his Labor Department failed by removing some regulations regarding H-2A.
harvest season I’m approaching
As seasonal harvests begin, farmers across the country bring in workers.
At Christo Brothers Orchards in Walden, New York, H-2A workers eagerly pruned apple tree branches covered in freshly explosive white flowers from pink buds to ensure future apples get the same access. In packaging houses, apples from last season load the bags from the fridge onto conveyor belts, checking for irregularities before packaging.
The orchard has been in the Christo family since 1883, and Jenny Christo is currently running it with his older brother and parents. She said that when their first wave of workers comes this March and more workers come to pick apples from the trees, they are preparing orchards for harvest. By the end of the year, more than 150 H-2A workers will pass the compound and help produce apples sold in supermarkets below the East Coast.
“[H-2A]has a farm 70 miles north of New York City, 70 miles north, providing food in the United States and providing labor that allows people to hire all year round,” Christo said. “Without that, we certainly wouldn’t farm apples. My guess is this is probably home.”
The H-2A visa was created by the Immigration Reform and Management Act of 1986. This is a huge measure that simultaneously cracked down on employers who hire immigrants without permission to work, and provided “pardons” to nearly three million immigrants without legal status. The law states that farmers must demonstrate attempts to hire locally first and pay H-2A workers above the minimum wage. Unlike local workers, H-2A workers must also provide transportation to and from homes and daily transport for the season.
Worker leaders argue that farmers prefer H-2A workers despite their cost and are easily exploitable. Visas are related to employment, so workers cannot find jobs elsewhere, and the ability to stay in the country creates the ability to rely entirely on employers who can revoke it at any time and sometimes hold a passport.
The intent to leave an abusive workplace can be exacerbated by the fact that many H-2A workers arrive with debt arising from recruiters who pay to get here. Employers must pay all recruitment fees, but recruiters’ practices are run internationally and therefore are largely unregulated.
The situation for American farm workers is already really bad, but what they are trying to do is legalize this oppression.
The DC-based Institute of Economic Policy, a liberal think tank, is equivalent to a program that exploits and silences migrant workers, and in the process, replacing year-round workers. In some cases, US prosecutors have accused farmers and recruiters of engaging in forced labor trafficking using the H-2A program.
“The situation for American farm workers is already really bad, but what they’re trying to do is legalize this oppression,” said Carlos Marentes, executive director of El Paso-based Centro de Los Trabajadores Agrícolas Fronterizos. “The way in which the H-2A program proposes to remove regulations and guarantees that workers get looks like legalized slavery. The industry understands that it requires a workforce, but you need a workforce that is appreciated because your employer is providing you with a job.”
Not documented laborer left Behind?
If mass deportation goes as promised, growers and ranchers become even more desperate for these workers. According to the US Department of Agriculture, undocumented workers make up about 40% of agricultural workers.
These longtime farm workers say the system is designed to replace them with more vulnerable groups, to limit their job opportunities and reduce the power of the union by giving farmers an alternative labor pool.
“It’s very clear that the deportation of undocumented workers is to clear the field of bringing in H-2A workers instead of introducing the families of these farm workers who are part of our community for over 20 years, and to provide (legal) status to remain productive community members.” “Everyone in this country is immigrants, there’s an opportunity to build a community and eradicate themselves, and families who suddenly come from Mexico don’t do that?”
In 2023, a bipartisan coalition of the House of Representatives introduced the Dignity Act. It aims to address this by expanding H-2A visas and expanding its legal status to long-term farm workers. However, the proposal ultimately failed after Republicans overturned the course.
Workers were still needed
In Red River Valley, Minnesota, Scottfield runs Field Brothers Farm with his older brother John, growing grain, beans and sugar beets on the same land that his family has worked for five generations. His community has been reduced as the younger generation moves into the city and relies on H-2A workers for field brothers.
“No one can do the job here,” Scott Field said.
With housing and transportation considered, the field says it spends over $30 per hour on H-2A workers. He said that it would be easy if they could hire them as US citizens. He detailed why.
“These are people who work, make money, spend money in the community, pay taxes. If they made it easier for them to come here and be with their families, I’ll talk about the revival of the countryside of America,” Field said.
The change to the H-2A visa is probably also felt in Mexico. In Mexico, over 91% of H-2A workers are from. Some people have small, subsistence farms or are part of the 2 million people who were caught up in the launch of the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, relying on seasonal income to provide basic necessities to their families.
Flavio Vázquez has worked for Crist Bros Orchards for the past five years and has earned more than an hour of packed apples More than what he can do in a day at his home in Morelos, Mexico. Estimates for 2020 show that even though the unemployment rate is below 2%, more than half of Morelos’ population is in poverty. However, the fact that the visa allows him to escape poverty does not mean that it is ideal for him.
Vasquez has to live between a warehouse and a dorm 2,500 miles from his loved one for eight months a year, allowing him to earn a higher income, but at a cost. He enjoys working at New York’s Hudson Valley, but he hopes that he can take his family and build a lasting life.
“In Morelos, the situation is difficult, so I’ll come here to stay to stabilize the community financially and have resources for my family,” said Vasquez, who appears to have stepped down when the Apple Scan machine yelled in the background.
“In Mexico, I leave my children, wives and parents who will emotionally support you. I will feel more comfortable with my family here.”
This story was co-published with Puente News Collaborative in collaboration with Parabra and Craig Newmark Graduate School of Journalism at City University in New York City (Cuny). Puente News Collaborative is a bilingual, nonprofit newsroom, convener and funder dedicated to high quality fact-based news and information from Us– Mexican border.