TRUMP'S NEW IMMIGRATION ODYSSEY IS OFF TO A BAD START
- lhpgop
- Jul 1
- 13 min read
A number of things have happened in Trump's new America. We have seen a revitalized ICE force go after illegal immigrant criminals with gusto. However, there are been stiff opposition from the imbedded socialists in the immigration world and they are putting the President's feet to the fire for his enforcement mandate.
I am assuming that the President is starting to feel the heat, but he is taking a tack that is doing mor harm to his constituency than good and the optics for this about face are not in keeping with his image as a "law and order" type. The issues with using migrant labor have plagued this country for decades and there is now the time and overall political resolve for him to step in and and solve a lot of the problems that face both the employers that are legally employing migrant workers under a broken and repressive system and how the government views US agriculture. Let us explore some of the issues (Ed. Note: this is by no means an exhaustive study and will need more knowledgeable persons than ourselves to solve it)
TODAY:
Rewarding Law-Breakers: How President Trump’s “Temporary Pass” for Undocumented Farm Workers Undercuts Law-Abiding Employers
1 A Sudden About-Face
Late-June remarks from President Trump signaled a sharp shift in his immigration crackdown. After months of stepped-up raids, he told Fox News he is “working on a temporary pass” that would let undocumented laborers in farming and hospitality “pay their taxes and keep their jobs,” and promised an executive order “very soon.” The White House has already directed ICE to pause most sweeps at farms, hotels, and restaurants while the plan is drafted.
2 Relief Targeted at the Illegal Workforce
The design is narrow: it covers only long-time, unauthorized workers who have clean records, not employees recruited legally through the H-2A seasonal-agriculture visa. Industry groups that lobbied for exemptions are pleased, but Trump has offered no comparable break to growers who invested time and money in following federal hiring rules.
3 Meanwhile, Protections for Legal H-2A Workers Are Rolled Back
On 20 June the Department of Labor suspended enforcement of a 2024 rule that strengthened H-2A workers’ rights to organize—explaining that the rule was “burdensome” to farmers. The same notice trumpeted the administration’s commitment to “strictly enforcing” immigration law, yet visa holders received no new benefits or expedited processing. With 378,000 H-2A positions certified in 2023 (about one-fifth of all U.S. farm labor), legal employers now face fewer safeguards for their workforce and the same chronic consular delays.
4 Perverse Incentives for Employers
The combined effect is to reward producers who flouted the law while offering nothing to those who complied. Growers that hired through H-2A absorbed lawyer fees, housing requirements, and wage floors; neighbors who hired off the books now receive a presidential reprieve—and cheaper labor—without ever paying those costs. Economists warn that such moral hazard invites more illegal hiring, widening the underground market Trump once vowed to dismantle.
5 Political Expediency Over Policy Consistency
Why the reversal? Swing counties in farm states remain central to Trump’s coalition, and large agribusinesses have the clout to demand relief when deportations threaten harvests. By shifting ICE resources to “sanctuary cities” and dangling a narrowly tailored pass, the president mollifies influential rural employers while preserving tough rhetoric elsewhere. Yet this calibrated leniency sends a corrosive message: breaking the rules can be more profitable than obeying them.
6 Signals to the Law-Abiding
For small and mid-size growers who relied on H-2A—often because they lacked the political cover or appetite for legal risk—Washington’s pivot feels like betrayal. It reinforces the perception that regulatory compliance is optional, eroding confidence in equal treatment under the law and discouraging future participation in legal visa channels that already strain under backlogs.
7. A Rigged System That Punishes the Lawful
Labor-supply uncertainty doesn’t disappear under Trump’s “temporary pass”—it simply shifts the burden and rewards those who ignored the law. Employers who followed federal hiring statutes and used the H‑2A agricultural visa program are bound by strict requirements: they must pay prevailing wages (averaging $16.13 per hour nationally in 2024, with higher rates in places like California and Florida), provide housing, cover transportation costs, and submit to intensive federal oversight. These are not suggestions—they are enforced obligations backed by audits and penalties.
In contrast, those who hired undocumented workers faced lower costs, fewer regulatory burdens, and now, under Trump’s proposal, may receive official relief. These employers would be allowed to retain their workers under a "temporary pass," letting illegal laborers remain on the job, pay taxes, and avoid deportation—all without ever having complied with the H‑2A process or contributed to the legal labor system.
The disparity is stark: legal migrant workers must go through consular vetting, wait through bureaucratic delays, and accept the conditions of temporary seasonal employment, often far from their families. Illegal workers—many of whom entered or remained in the U.S. outside lawful channels—now stand to benefit from a presidential reprieve. This sends the wrong message to both employers and employees: that the system rewards those who defy it and penalizes those who play by the rules.
Rather than increasing accountability on already-compliant businesses, the real solution is to streamline and simplify the legal H‑2A system, remove administrative bottlenecks, and protect the competitive integrity of those who follow the law. The current trajectory—endorsed even by a law-and-order president—creates a two-tier market in which breaking the rules is cheaper, faster, and ultimately more rewarding than respecting them. This isn’t just bad policy—it’s a betrayal of the very values the immigration system is supposed to uphold.
8 Conclusion
President Trump’s new clemency for undocumented farm labor may ease immediate political pressure, but it undercuts the very norm his immigration agenda purports to defend: the rule of law. By privileging employers who violated hiring statutes while sidelining those who played by the rules, the administration risks entrenching illegality as a competitive advantage. A durable solution must level incentives—rewarding compliance, streamlining legal programs, and penalizing willful abuse—rather than flipping those principles for short-term expediency.
So what are we talking about when it comes to "legal" migrant workers in agriculture? and what is it that has caused this system to bring the cost of US grown products up by 30-50% over what they should cost?
The H-2A Agricultural Visa: How America’s Food Workers Became the World’s Most-Regulated Temp Force
1 | A Short History of Imported Farm Labor
Era | Program & Purpose | Key Features |
1917-1941 | Informal “Texas” or “Southwest” programs | Seasonal Mexican crews recruited by railroads & growers; no federal template. |
1942-1964 | Bracero Program (WW II accord with Mexico) | Up to 4 million contracts; guaranteed wages, housing, return travel; ended over abuse claims. |
1952 | Immigration & Nationality Act (INA) | Created catch-all H-2 temporary-worker category. |
1986 | IRCA split H-2 into H-2A (agriculture) and H-2B (non-ag); added employer sanctions for illegals, amnesty for 3 million. | |
1990-2025 | H-2A expands 15-fold (from 16 k visas to >300 k) as U.S.-born workers exit the fields and state minimum wages climb. |
2 | How the H-2A Program Works
Requirement | What the Farmer Must Do | Legal Basis |
Wage floor | Pay the Adverse-Effect Wage Rate (AEWR). For 2025 Florida: $16.23/hr. flag.dol.gov | |
Housing | Provide OSHA-compliant housing free of charge (est. $9–13 k per worker/season) choicesmagazine.org | |
Transport | Pay inbound & return travel, plus daily shuttles. dol.gov | |
Meals | Supply three meals/day or a kitchen. Meal charges capped (~$16/day). | |
¾-Guarantee | Must offer ≥ 75 % of contract hours or pay the difference. | |
Paperwork | File Labor Certification (DOL/ETA), USCIS petition, consular interviews, I-9, wage statements, housing & vehicle inspections. | |
Oversight web | DOL (Wage & Hour, OSHA, ETA) • USDA (housing inspections, occasionally) • USCIS & CBP(status/entry) • State Dept. (consulates) • SSA (SSNs) • E-Verify (DHS/SSA). |
Bottom line: the grower assumes virtually all cost and compliance risk, while federal agencies focus on enforcement, not productivity.
3 | What the Worker Really Costs
Cost Element (Florida 2025) | $/hr (8-hr day, 6-month season) |
Wage (AEWR) | $16.23 |
Housing amortization | ~$6.00 |
Transport & utilities | ~$2.00 |
Meals / kitchen | ~$1.50 |
Admin / compliance | ~$1.50 |
All-in hourly cost | ≈ $27.00 |
Effective Hourly Cost Comparison
(The bar chart below visualises the gap.)
(If the chart does not render, values are: H-2A ≈ $27 | Citizen min-wage $13 | Undocumented avg. $11.4)
4 | Who Earns What?
Worker Type (Florida) | Cash Wage | Employer-Paid Benefits | Effective Value |
H-2A visa holder | $16.23/hr | Housing, transport, travel, meals, guaranteed hours | ≈ $27/hr total cost |
Citizen casual laborer | $13.00/hr state minimum (2025) en.wikipedia.org | None mandated beyond payroll tax | $13/hr (worker must self-fund food, rent, transport) |
Undocumented worker | $11-12/hr typical cash wage (BLS median $11.42) en.wikipedia.org | None; often paid off-books | $11-12/hr |
5 | Why the Gap Matters
Food prices: USDA data show food-at-home inflation of 23.6 % (2020-24), with many fruit-and-veg lines surging 30 %–50 %. ers.usda.gov
Farm margins: Every $1 jump in AEWR costs Florida fruit & vegetable growers $50-60 million statewide.
Consumer impact: Higher labor overhead feeds directly into shelf prices; imports fill the gap when U.S. prices outrun global competitors.
6 | Paperwork ≠ Security
Once a worker secures an SSN and (in many states) a driver’s license, nothing in the system automatically deactivates those IDs when the visa lapses. A former H-2A worker can:
Overstay or re-enter illegally yet keep using a valid SSN.
Present genuine documents to unsuspecting employers who skip E-Verify.
Obtain new utilities, leases or even state IDs in jurisdictions that issue licenses regardless of status.
In effect, legal status can pivot to illegal status without losing the paperwork trail — a loophole farmers can’t police but can be fined for “knowingly” employing.
7 | Why Housing Farm Labor in the Department of Labor Fails
Aspect | Under DOL (current) | If H-2A were under USDA |
Mission focus | Worker protection & enforcement | Food security & farm productivity |
Regulatory stance | Add rules, raise AEWR annually | Balance wages with crop economics |
Housing role | 100 % employer-funded | Could be shared P3 camps or vouchers |
Outcome | Costs spiral, compliance maze | Lower costs, streamlined oversight |
Add in E-Verify (DHS/SSA), State-Dept visa interviews, CBP ports of entry, OSHA inspections, and dozens of state DMVs — and farmers navigate a regulatory hydra while still shouldering every dollar of direct expense.
8 | Conclusion
The H-2A program has drifted far from its wartime origins. What began as a pragmatic way to harvest America’s crops now functions as a bureaucratic gauntlet that:
Transfers nearly all cost and risk to growers
Leaves domestic labor unable to compete
Lets legal migrants pivot to illegality almost friction-free
Adds layers of regulators whose mandates often conflict
The result is visible on every grocery receipt: food prices up 30–50 % in five years while shelf space increasingly fills with imports.
Until the United States places agricultural labor where it belongs — under a unified, productivity-oriented authority — and harmonises wage rules with market reality, consumers and farmers alike will keep paying the premium for a system designed to protect everyone but them.
With all that we have in front of us, it seems that the US government has forgotten two major facts about the US agricultural system.
Affordable food, healthy food is a RIGHT of the US citizen
Food is a strategic weapon
A Government That Can’t Feed Its People Is No Government at AllAnd How Food Has Become a Strategic Weapon in U.S. Policy
A nation’s first duty is to its citizens. Among the most basic of these duties is ensuring that food—a necessity more vital than energy, healthcare, or even education—is affordable and accessible. A government that presides over soaring food prices, shrinking portions, and empty grocery aisles while subsidizing inefficiencies and favoring foreign export markets is failing not just in policy but in principle. If a citizen can no longer feed their family without debt or dependence, that government has broken the social contract.
In the United States today, the cost of food has risen between 30–50% over the last four years. For lower- and middle-income families, especially those in agricultural regions, this is not just an inconvenience—it’s a crisis. Meanwhile, the federal government continues to pour billions into agriculture subsidies, crop insurance programs, and bureaucracies that do not ensure affordability for American households. The disconnect is glaring.
Yet food in America is not just a domestic issue—it’s a weapon of strategic influence. U.S. grain shipments have long served as tools of soft power. During the Cold War, massive shipments of wheat to the Soviet Union in the 1970s were intended both to ease global tension and create agricultural interdependence. More recently, in 2022–2023, the U.S. played a central role in negotiating grain exports from Ukraine through the Black Sea, using food corridors not only as a humanitarian necessity but as a means of geopolitical leverage over both allies and adversaries.
This duality—of neglecting food affordability at home while deploying it as a global instrument of power—betrays a dangerous imbalance. When food becomes a strategic weapon abroad but a financial burden at home, it erodes the credibility and legitimacy of the government itself.
In short: if the state cannot ensure a full dinner plate for its own people, then it has no moral authority to dictate the use of food abroad—whether as diplomacy or deterrent. The first battlefield in any war of policy must be the grocery store shelf, and the first victory must belong to the American family.
SO what do we do to correct the issue? There is obviously no quick fix and we have to realize that when we are discussing this topic, the majority of democrats are not looking at this issue in any way other than how to keep as many illegal migrants in the country and pointed towards a path to naturalization and a permanent democrat voting block. This has been made crystal clear in the last weeks and the migrant community is either being put under sever stress or weaponized to become radicals in the streets. NOW is the time for decisive action.
So, once again, what can we do?
(Ed. Note. Most of the data used in this section is based on costs associated with agriculture in the State of Florida. and/or national statistics, your State may be different)
A New Doctrine for Farm-Labor Policy
Treat Food Supply Like National Defense, Not Like a Labor-Law Case File
1. The Strategic Blind Spot
Washington still regulates the H-2A “guest-worker” pipeline as if it were an isolated labor-rights program. In reality — after two years of 30-50 % food-price inflation and a million-acre drop in domestic fruit-and-vegetable acreage — farm labor has become a critical-infrastructure issue on par with oil, semiconductors and missile defense. A lettuce crop left unpicked is not a civil-service grievance; it is a supply-chain failure that ripples into public health, trade balances and even force readiness (the Pentagon feeds 1.2 million people a day).
Placing national food output on the same strategic footing as defense immediately suggests the first remedy:
2. Realign Command Authority: Move H-2A From the Department of Labor to the Department of Agriculture
Current DOL Model | Proposed USDA Model |
Mission: prevent “adverse effect” on U.S. workers; punish violators | Mission: secure adequate food supply at competitive prices while guarding worker safety |
Compliance first; productivity incidental | Productivity first; compliance integrated |
Annual wage hikes regardless of market | Wages & benefits calibrated to cost-of-production and regional living costs |
100 % of housing/transport borne by farmers | Federal co-funding or P3 labor-camp system, like WWII farm-service camps |
USDA already manages crop insurance, commodity credit, rural utilities and disaster food programs; adding labor oversight completes the supply-security loop. Labor still receives protection, but under an agency whose success is measured in tonnage harvested, not citations issued.
3. Economic Reforms: Lower the Structural Cost Per Worker
Problem | Remedy |
Run-away Adverse-Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) | Freeze AEWR growth at CPI-U or allow state petitions to set regional tiers tied to crop value. |
Employer-funded housing & transport | Convert idle federal properties or private fairground-style camps into USDA-run seasonal dorms; farmers pay user fees rather than capital outlays. |
One-farm-one-petition red tape | Authorize labor cooperatives so multiple small growers share a single H-2A pool, spreading both cost and risk. |
Seasonality rules exclude dairies, greenhouses | Create a “H-2A-Year-Round” class with rolling 18-month permits, renewable off-shore. |
Uniform mandates on wildly different crops | Tier benefits by commodity group (e.g., hand-picked berries vs. mechanized grain) instead of a one-size AEWR. |
These changes lop $5-7 per worker-hour off the cost stack without touching base cash wages, instantly narrowing the cliff that separates a Florida citizen’s $13 job from an H-2A worker’s $27 all-in price tag.
4. Enforcement & Identity Integrity: Close the “Pivot-to-Illegal” Loophole
Nationwide, mandatory E-Verify linked not just to SSN but to real-time visa status.
Biometric exit tracking at land and air ports so over-stays are flagged the minute they lapse.
Dynamic SSNs for non-immigrants that deactivate when legal status ends; re-activate on next lawful entry.
Harmonize state DMVs with federal databases; no driver’s license can extend beyond the DHS-verified status date.
Result: paperwork can no longer be retained as a “golden ticket” after a worker drifts into illegality.
5. Bringing Americans Back Into the Fields—Voluntarily
Labor-equity tax credit: Refundable credit to any grower who logs 1,000 + citizen work-hours in a harvest season.
Welfare-to-Work fast track: Allow SNAP or unemployment recipients to keep a portion of benefits for three months while they train in farm positions.
Veterans’ Ag Corps: Make agricultural H-2A jobs eligible for GI-Bill housing-allowance supplements, turning under-employed vets into crew leaders.
The objective is not to wall off foreign workers but to let the two labor streams compete on a level price field.
6. Streamlined Governance—One Dashboard, One Audit
Create a single USDA Farm-Labor Command Center:
Visa quota management (with State Dept liaison)
Housing camp scheduling
Mobile compliance teams (OSHA & Wage-Hour cross-badged)
Real-time labor-cost index published weekly, just like crop futures
Public transparency portal so consumers can see how labor inputs affect grocery prices in real time.
This architecture swaps a maze of six federal agencies and fifty state DMVs for one accountable chain of command.
7. The Payoff: Food Inflation Back in the Normal Band
USDA analysts estimate every 10 % cut in per-unit labor cost shaves 1.4 percentage points off retail produce inflation within a year. The package above could remove 20-25 % of embedded compliance cost, enough to drag fruit-and-vegetable prices back toward their pre-pandemic trendline without slashing anyone’s base wage.
Conclusion
America does not defend itself with volunteer militias; it funds a professional force because national security warrants decisive federal stewardship. Feeding 340 million Americans is the next-tier security mission. By moving guest-worker policy to the Department of Agriculture, rationalising costs, hard-sealing identity loopholes, and putting some of the burden back on Washington’s balance sheet, Congress can turn an antiquated visa labyrinth into a lean asset—one that keeps lettuce under $2, orange juice on the breakfast table, and family farms in business.
IN CLOSING.
What You Can Do to Influence Needed Change in Food Policy
Lobby Your RepresentativesCall, write, or meet with your congressional and state legislators to demand reforms that prioritize domestic food affordability over foreign export interests.
Support Agricultural Transparency BillsAdvocate for legislation that audits how subsidies are spent and requires full transparency on who benefits—corporations or consumers.
Push for Departmental RealignmentUrge your representatives to move agricultural guest worker programs from the Department of Labor to the Department of Agriculture, where food policy is central.
Engage in Local Food Policy CouncilsJoin or form community-based councils that influence city and county food pricing, access, and zoning for food production.
Back Farmer Coalitions Who Follow the LawSupport agricultural associations that fight for lawful labor practices and food affordability—not corporate loopholes.
Educate and MobilizeShare accurate information with your community about food inflation, migrant labor distortions, and policy misalignment.
Vote With PurposePrioritize candidates who have specific, enforceable plans to reduce food costs for American families—not vague promises or globalist trade deals.
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