Farmers Beg Trump Not to Deport the Immigrants They Use for Cheap Labor

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Pretty Please

As Donald Trump's second presidential transition hurtles forward, his plan to mass-deport undocumented immigrants is causing farmers to panic — and, tellingly, to beg for exemptions.

As Reuters reports, farming groups and their GOP allies are urging the president-elect to make exemptions for undocumented agricultural workers in his mass deportation campaign promise.

While former acting ICE director and current "border czar" pick Tim Homan has made no indications of any groups being targeted besides undocumented immigrants with criminal records, farmers are still worried. Given their financial incentives to keep employing people who lack legal status, it's not hard to see why.

Nearly half of the United States' two million farm workers are, per the Agriculture Department, lacking in legal work authorization. Farmers hire them because undocumented workers are cheaper to employ — a see-no-evil situation in which consumers also benefit because cheap labor keeps food prices down.

With undocumented farmworkers potentially being targeted in the vague incoming immigration raids, lobbying groups are proposing expanded legal pathways to help undocumented agricultural workers attain visas.

"We need the certainty, reliability, and affordability of a workforce program and programs that are going to allow us to continue to deliver food from the farm to the table," John Hollay of the International Fresh Produce Association told Reuters.

Ice Ice Baby

During his last turn at the head of ICE, Homan became infamous for defending the first Trump administration's cruel family separation policy. In light of his second incoming stint with the president-elect, some farmer advocates are using that rhetoric against the proposed policy.

In an interview with Newsweek, dairy farmer Jennifer Tilton Flood of the Flood Brothers Farm in Maine said that because her family's facilities are located close to the United States' border with Canada, it's "within the control" of Customs and Border Patrol. As such, that department could potentially act "without due diligence" to deport the people who work there.

"There is a great chance for families to be broken apart," Flood said. "A lot of my team are raising Americans at home."

"There is a lot of concern," the farmer continued, "and there's a lot of panic."

Despite this outcry, Trump's soon-to-be border czar is making no promises for exemptions.

"We've got a lot on our plate," Homan told Reuters.

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