There are an estimated 155,000 illegal immigrants in Pennsylvania, according to the American Immigration Council. According to them, about 30,000 of them may work in the state agricultural sector Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture estimates.
With the state’s agriculture industry already struggling with a labor shortage, President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to begin a mass deportation program at the start of his term next week could exacerbate the problem.
Lerae Kroon, supervising attorney at the Pennsylvania Farmworker Project, said Trump’s proposed mass deportation program “will cause chaos and pain for everyone in the community.”
“Many undocumented workers live with and support extended and blended families who find themselves in economic difficulties,” Kroon said. “The labor shortage will only get worse as people are caught up in raids, and even documented workers may decide the risk is not worth it and leave agricultural work.”
According to Kroon, there is already a sense of increased hostility toward immigration in Pennsylvania.
“We have heard from customers and community partners who are afraid,” Kroon said. “Anti-immigrant rhetoric is already pushing people into the shadows, and we expect that to continue.”
Elected officials in Pennsylvania are urging the up-to-date Trump administration to exercise caution and ensure that any changes to the immigration system ensure that seasonal workers can legally enter the country.
“We will see what the president-elect actually decides.”
Last week, in an address to the audience at the Pennsylvania Farm Show, Gov. Josh Shapiro called filling labor shortages in the state’s agriculture sector “vitally important.”
Shapiro said his administration has made investments in agricultural education and apprenticeship programs to get teenage people into the workforce. He also said it was significant to ensure that immigrant and seasonal workers, who make up a immense part of the agricultural workforce, can work legally in the country.
Although Shapiro did not mention Trump by name, the president-elect has repeatedly promised to implement “the largest mass deportation program in American history,” which he said would begin on his first day in office in less than a week. Trump has also proposed ending birthright citizenship and potentially deportations of entire families with mixed immigration status.
“We also need thoughtful and responsible immigration reform at the federal level that prioritizes the needs of our agricultural industry,” Shapiro said. “I hope our federal partners can come together to make this happen.”
Asked at a news conference after the speech how he would support farm workers and business owners if Trump took a more extreme approach to his deportation plans, Shapiro responded noncommittally.
“Let’s see what the president-elect actually decides to do here — he’s said a lot of different things,” Shapiro said. “Our administration will be prepared.”
Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture estimated that nearly half of Pennsylvania’s farm workers, or about 30,000 people, may be undocumented immigrants according to the 2017 census. American Immigration Council, an immigration advocacy group, estimates that immigrants, both documented and undocumented, make up approximately 9.7% of the state’s total labor forceaccording to data for 2022 and that, overall, a immense proportion of people work in the agricultural sector.
According to Bailey Fisher, federal affairs specialist at the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, some industries in Pennsylvania that rely heavily on labor include dairy farms, mushroom, fruit and Christmas tree farms.
“The jobs that foreign-born farm workers have are specialized, technical and grueling,” Kroon said, discussing why migrant workers are so significant to the agricultural sector. “They are also historically low paid. As agricultural labor shortages continue to grow, work still needs to be done, and some undocumented workers are willing to do it.”
Trump has at times said he would focus his efforts on early deportations criminals. After winning the election, he also told NBC’s Meet The Press that he would is open to deporting all illegal immigrants in the country during his next term.
“Destructive Impact”
Shapiro’s response to Trump’s statements is similar other comments he made since Trump’s election in November. Other Democratic governors do took a more decisive stancesaying they would try to block deportation efforts or instruct law enforcement in their states not to cooperate with federal agents.
As governor, Shapiro could play a leading role in shaping the state’s response to any deportation plans introduced by Trump. He also has a long history of opposing Trump’s immigration policies. When he was attorney general of Pennsylvania, Shapiro joined the multi-state lawsuit to stop Trump family separation policy in which tiny children were taken away from their parents. He also rejected Trump’s attempts ban Muslims travel to the United States and his first administration’s policies that made it tough for immigrants living in the U.S. to change their immigration status.
Pennsylvania House of Representatives Rep. Jose Giral (Philadelphia), vice chairman of the Pennsylvania Latino Legislative Caucus and member of the House Labor and Industry Committee, called for more balanced immigration reform.
“President-elect Trump’s mass deportation plan would have a devastating impact on our agricultural industry – our largest industry generating tens of billions of dollars in revenue and economic activity every year – and the loss of these workers would cause everyone’s grocery bills to skyrocket,” Giral said. Capital-Star in a statement. “The federal government should focus on immigration reform instead of focusing on hard-working and essential farm workers.”
But some Democrats, like Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, have shown a greater willingness to work with Republicans on immigration reform. Fetterman recently joined the group of co-sponsors of the GOP-led party Laken Riley Actnamed after a teenage Georgia woman whose murder by an undocumented immigrant previously arrested for shoplifting and child endangerment became a rallying cry to support the Trump campaign’s immigration proposals. The vote in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives delegation was bipartisan. Democratic Reps. Brendan Boyle and Chris Deluzio voted for the bill along with all state Republicans. The Senate has not yet taken a final vote on the bill.
The bill would require Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers to detain undocumented immigrants accused of theft-related crimes, such as burglary and shoplifting, regardless of whether they have been convicted. It would also give state attorneys general greater authority to sue the federal government for harm caused to citizens by illegal immigrants.
Latest polls shows that support for the deportation of illegal immigrants has increased among the American public.
Recently elected Senator Dave McCormick (R-PA) also addressed immigration during Saturday’s Farm Show, stating that immigration reform should come from efforts to raise border security and ponderous immigration.
“The first order of business has to be closing the border, but I hope that as we get further into the president’s term, we can get back to legal immigration reform,” McCormick said.
Specifically addressing the needs of Pennsylvania farmers, McCormick said: “Especially in this community, there is a need for H-2A and other reforms that will enable us to employ legal farm workers,” McCormick told the Capital-Star. “And these are jobs that are not replacing American workers. These are positions that will remain unfilled unless we enact immigration reform
“We are already having trouble finding enough workers.”
In the current situation H-2A visa programthat allows U.S. employers to hire foreign workers for short-lived agricultural employment may not be able to hire enough people to offset the loss of undocumented workers if Trump implements a sweeping deportation program.
“I don’t know if the H-2A program in its current scope would be able to handle that,” said Fisher, a federal affairs specialist at the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau. “We are already struggling to get enough staff to participate in the program.”
Fisher said the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau does not take a position on immigration debates, but is talking to the up-to-date Trump administration to convey the seriousness of the labor shortage and the role of seasonal migrant workers in filling it.
The Pennsylvania Farm Bureau recommends that visa holders be allowed to work year-round, rather than just six months, and to make it easier for farmers to apply for the program.
Fisher also said getting enough workers isn’t the program’s only problem. Employers using this technology must complete a huge amount of paperwork, which sometimes requires them to hire specialized consultants. And with stringent housing standards and transportation requirements, hiring seasonal workers can become steep.
“We obviously want to make sure that employees feel safe and healthy,” Fisher said. “But we want to add some practicality to it.”
But ultimately, Fisher said, reform may be tough.
“The H-2A program is a real beast,” Fisher said.
And there is one more thing. “We understand that immigration is related to agricultural work under the H-2A visa program, but whenever you bring up the topic of immigration, it becomes a politicized topic and you can never do anything.”
Fisher said she began to hear concerns from Pennsylvania agricultural business owners about the potential impacts of the deportation program. But like Shapiro, he tells them, “just wait and see what happens. At this point, much of this information may just be rumors.
Capital-Star reporter John Cole contributed.
