Farmers are losing patience with the labor crisis caused by President Donald Trump's immigration policies.
House Agriculture Chair G.T. Thompson (R-PA) is planning to introduce legislation he says will ease a major shortage in workers that's followed Trump's immigration crackdown, but farmers in the Pennsylvania Republican’s district told Politico they need help right now.
“The whole thing is screwed up,” said three-time Trump voter John Painter, who operates an organic dairy farm in Westfield. “We need people to do the jobs Americans are too spoiled to do.”
The U.S. agricultural workforce fell by 155,000 — about 7 percent — between March and July, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and the Pew Research Center found that total immigrant labor fell by 750,000 from January through July, leaving farmers with crop surpluses made worse by shrinking export markets.
“People don’t understand that if we don’t get more labor, our cows don’t get milked and our crops don’t get picked,” said dairy farmer Tim Wood, a member of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau board of directors.
Farmers often turn to undocumented laborers to cut through red tape and higher costs related to the H-2A program that covers seasonal workers, but Thompson's legislation would allow employers to hire for year-round operations like dairy farms.
“It’s only going to last as long as this administration does, and that’s why we have to codify this,” Thompson said. “Because what farmers need [is] certainty.”
Painter hired a Mexican couple who worked for him for two years until the husband was pulled over in a traffic stop in New York, and was eventually deported after more than a year in detention. His wife and children followed him out of the country.
“I understand that he was here illegally, but I also understand that he’s human,” Painter said. “They want the American dream, and they want to work.”
Painter eventually hired another couple from Guatemala, but the Trump supporter admitted that he's “very disappointed” in the president's immigration policy in his second term.
“If they’re here working and paying their taxes,” Painter said, “they are not the troublemakers that we should be focusing on getting rid of. ... It’s not right, what they’re doing. All of us, if we look back in history, including the president, we have somebody that came to this country for the American dream.”
