Food crisis looms as Trump's deportations cut farm wages, Labor warns
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Farmworkers and volunteers with the Inland Congregations United for Change on Oct. 7, 2025. Photo: Russell Contreras/Axios.
The Trump administration is warning Americans of a looming food crisis brought on by its own crackdown on undocumented farmworkers.
Why it matters: To offset the fallout, the administration pushed through an emergency rule last week that could gut the paychecks of domestic farmworkers by replacing them with foreign guest workers subject to lower wages.
How it works: The rule change, first reported by The American Prospect, would decrease what foreign nationals who want to work in the U.S. as temporary agricultural workers under the H-2A program are paid.
- The uncapped program is highly attractive to guest workers because the rates offered are significantly higher than what they could earn in their home countries, according to a study published in the American Journal of Agriculture Economics earlier this year.
- The Labor Department said that the pay changes are necessary to counter the cost of the "significant disruptions" the president's immigration raids are causing on the "stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S consumers."
- The rule change is effective immediately and could push some farmworkers' hourly wages below the minimum wage for their state.
State of play: Farmworkers in Southern California's Coachella Valley told Axios' Russell Contreras earlier this week that the immigration crackdown is forcing many workers to stay home, leaving a labor shortage in a region that supports year-round farming.
- The Valley, 2 1/2 hours east of Los Angeles, is one of the country's leading producers of winter vegetables and fruits, particularly lettuce, spinach and kale.
- Some households there have been reduced to one provider or none, forcing multiple families to move into one house.
What they're saying: "This is why [farmers] haven't been yelling bloody murder about raids," United Farm Workers spokesperson Antonio De Loera-Brust told Axios in a phone interview.
- "They don't care if you deport their long standing workers, as long as they've got somebody who they can exploit and pay very little and who has no rights and is not a citizen," he said.
- He added that plenty of American citizens could also face a paycheck cut from the new rule.
- "Lowering wages for the guest worker program threatens all of their jobs, so I guess we're not included in America first."
Zoom out: MAGA officials, including Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, have repeatedly called for a "100% American" workforce.
- But that desire is complicated by the reality that mass deportations will have economic consequences for the agriculture, construction and customer service industries.
- Trump is aware of those competing demands — he's gone back and forth over how to balance them, and seems to have found a way to keep production costs down while still executing his massive deportation plans.
- The White House referred a request for comment to the Labor Department, which didn't immediately respond to Axios' request for comment. The Departments of Agriculture and Homeland Security also did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
Go deeper: Trump's immigration crackdown could stunt his blockbuster economic aims
