California farm groups look to stabilize workforce amid crackdown on illegal immigration

As the Trump administration cracks down on illegal immigration, California farm groups are working behind the scenes to influence legislative measures that would ensure a stable supply of laborers for the state’s farms and ranches, an industry long reliant on a foreign-born workforce.

The administration’s vows of mass raids targeting undocumented immigrants, combined with its new tariff-induced trade wars, have farmers and labor groups united behind the need for legislation that ensures the U.S. continues producing an ample food supply and has sufficient workers to tend its crops.

But beneath that shared goal a rift has opened around a singular question: Which workforce should be prioritized? Should farming interests push to protect and retain the undocumented workers who have toiled in the country’s fields for years and who, in many cases, have families and community roots? Or should they focus on solidifying the foreign guest worker program that provides a legal channel for importing seasonal laborers on a temporary basis, but offers no path to legal residency and has proved vulnerable to exploitation?

The issue is crucial in California, which grows more than one-third of the country’s vegetables and more than three-quarters of the nation’s fruits and nuts.

Although a growing number of the state’s farmworkers are hired temporarily through the cumbersome H-2A visa program, at least half of an estimated 255,700 farmworkers are undocumented immigrants, according to UC Merced research, and many have been in the country for more than a decade.

It has been nearly 40 years since federal lawmakers passed a comprehensive immigration reform bill. The Immigration Reform and Control Act of 1986 strengthened border security and introduced civil and criminal penalties for employers who knowingly hired undocumented workers. But it also paved the way for nearly 3 million immigrants in the country without authorization to gain legal status.

Many major farm interests think it’s time for another such reset. But immigration remains one of the most charged topics in the nation’s Capitol, and any agricultural labor bill would need to garner support in a Republican-controlled Congress and White House.

The California Farm Bureau, which advocates for farmers and ranchers, and the influential United Farm Workers union have for years called for reforms that would strengthen the legal pipeline for importing a temporary seasonal workforce and also provide a pathway to legal residency for undocumented laborers already in the U.S.

They supported the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, a bipartisan bill that has twice passed the House before stalling in the Senate. The measure, written by Rep. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, and Rep. Dan Newhouse, a Republican from Washington state, included a pathway to legal residency for farm laborers who have been working in the U.S. for an extended time period and who pass criminal background checks. It would have amended the agricultural guest worker visa program to streamline the hiring process, improve the availability of decent worker housing and establish a mandatory E-Verify system through which agricultural employers would electronically verify eligibility of their workers.

Though billed as a compromise, the legislation was ultimately sidelined by concerns from the powerful American Farm Bureau Federation and a faction of Republican lawmakers over a provision they feared could expose H-2A employers to lawsuits by workers. There were also concerns that a mandatory E-Verify provision would have significant impacts for farmers.

But with the Trump administration intent on upending the existing immigration system, leaders of California-based farming groups said the timing may be right for getting a comprehensive immigration measure passed. The bill’s lead authors say they expect to reintroduce a version of the bill soon.

“Sometimes, it’s these kinds of widespread concerns that open the door for an opportunity to fix the issues that just truly haven’t been dealt with for many decades,” said Ryan Jacobsen, chief executive of the Fresno County Farm Bureau.

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Meanwhile, the National Council of Agricultural Employers — which advocates for farmers and ranchers involved in labor-intensive agricultural production, and represents about 95% of employers using the H-2A program — has drafted legislation that aims to make the visa program more efficient, according to President and CEO Michael Marsh. It doesn’t provide a pathway to legal status, but Marsh said such a component could potentially be added in upcoming negotiations.

The legislation proposes to expand the types of labor covered under the visa program and allow for year-round employment of H-2A workers, according to a summary shared with The Times. It would eliminate a controversial minimum hourly wage structure for guest workers laid out under the current program unless the Government Accountability Office finds that the employment of H2-A workers undermines the domestic workforce. It would provide over $1 billion for construction and repair of farmworker housing.

It’s intended as a “marker bill,” Marsh said, meaning it contains policy ideas that could be folded into larger pieces of legislation.

The challenge, Marsh said, is to craft a bill that meets the needs of employers, encourages workers already in the country illegally to come out of the shadows — and can earn enough Republican votes to pass out of Congress.

“How do we thread the needle, so that we can make sure that we retain the existing workforce in some type of status that is not offensive to those folks who think it’s just amnesty, but at the same time allow farmers and ranchers in the United States to maintain a workforce and still produce food here?” Marsh said.

An H-2A-focused bill might be a palatable solution in states that are less reliant on undocumented workers and already more dependent on the visa program. But in California, rumblings of such a bill have stirred opposition.

Under H-2A, agricultural employers can hire workers from other countries on temporary permits, so long as they demonstrate an inability to find a sufficient number of available U.S. workers. The employer is required to provide imported workers with food, housing and safe working conditions.

Although the Golden State had among the highest number of certified H-2A workers in 2022, many California growers say the costs of providing housing and a required wage of nearly $20 an hour make the program economically unfeasible in its current form.

Farmworker advocates have also called for changes, saying the program is ripe for exploitation — because a worker’s permission to be in the country is tied to the employer — and should be bolstered with additional protections.

Manuel Cunha Jr., president of the Fresno-based Nisei Farmers League, said he would “heavily” oppose an H-2A-focused bill if it doesn’t also provide a path to legal residency for longtime farmworkers, including those who were deemed essential amid the pandemic.

“If you were to say you’re going to do a guest worker bill before you take care of the people that are here… I will fight that to the bitter end,” he said. “I’ll join the advocacy groups. I’ll even join the UFW.”

Farming and labor groups say they are still formulating their strategies for pushing significant legislative changes.

The Times was unable to reach several members of Congress who represent communities in California’s agricultural heartland. Spokespeople for Rep. David Valadao (R-Hanford) and Doug LaMalfa (R-Richvale) did not respond to requests for comment; a spokesperson for Rep. Vince Fong (R-Bakersfield) said he was unavailable for an interview due to his schedule.

Rep. Adam Gray, a Democrat from Merced, said he supports the Farm Workforce Modernization Act and would like to see a pathway to citizenship for agricultural workers. At the same time, he said, he would be open to working on a bill that reforms the H-2A visa program.

“We need to progress on this issue,” he said. “I think a lot of those strident positions that you see in Washington are not reflected when you go out in the real communities. I think you find a lot more Americans on both sides of the aisle that say, ‘Look, get something done.’”

This article is part of The Times’ equity reporting initiative, funded by the James Irvine Foundation, exploring the challenges facing low-income workers and the efforts being made to address California’s economic divide.