The trump administration is affecting the agriculture/field workers

Question

Field workers have been a part of this country for many centuries but it has always been looked down upon and many people say immigrants steal their jobs but in reality you will never see them work out there because they want a good paying job unlike the Hispanic/Latino community. Dolores Huerta who has worked alongside civil rights leader Ceaser Chavez had an interview with "Politico" said   "just recently did a study with the University of California Merced. Their average wage is $30,000 a year, $35,000 a year. And on that, they have to feed their families. A lot of them, unless they have a union contract, they’re paid minimum wage." This shows that yes there might be hard workers but these workers show pride and aren't ashamed of their work but even so the Trump administration is still trying attack them by deporting them "Many of those people that they have been picking up and arresting are farm workers. Here in Bakersfield, California, we were the first city to be hit. When Border Patrol came in, they arrested [78] people, and only one person had any kind of criminal record." Dolores Huerta stated in her interview. These farm workers are people that are essential and give this country food by working in farms and even meat factories, they may be "illegal aliens" but they work hard and try to provide for their families but little by little they are being ripped apart. 

Answer 1

This claim is true. In both of his terms as president of the United States, Trump has been deporting immigrants at an extremely high rate. Our country is built off of hardworking people. Trump wants to deport all the dangerous criminals, but in reality Trump is deporting so many hard working people, and most of them are not criminals. Most of these workers are in fieldwork, construction, and healthcare. According to ABC 7 News, "More than 1.2 million immigrants disappeared from the labor force from January through the end of July" (ABC 7 News, 2025). This is very scary, and is eyeopening to what our reality is. Trump is causing lots of issues for the workforce, and it is making a huge impact. These immigrants that he is sending away are super important to increasing the number of people with jobs. Later in the article, according to ABC 7 News, “Pia Orrenius, a labor economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, said immigrants normally contribute at least 50% of job growth in the U.S.”(ABC 7 News, 2025). This shows how important these immigrants are for the economy, and proving that these immigrants are working real jobs. This is a massive issue, and it is not slowing down. According to The National Immigration Law Center, “if the administration succeeds in its staggering and inhumane goal of removing 4 million people over the next 4 years, there would be 2.6 million fewer jobs for U.S.-born workers”(The National Immigration Law Center, 2025). The amount of jobs available are declining, and there needs to be a significant change to stop this. As long as Trump is in office, it seems as if he is going to keep this campaign going. With this amount of jobs not being available to us hurts everyone. This is not an issue that only hurts certain people. Deporting this many immigrants severely hurts everybody. The Trump administration is putting so much money into this campaign. Even though there are so many negative impacts because of this, they keep investing. According to The National Immigration Law Center, “$170 billion would fund a paid family and medical leave program or a universal preschool program for almost a decade. Or it could clear the backlog of all needed infrastructure improvements to our country’s public transit systems, twice” (The National Immigration Law Center, 2025). There is an opportunity for this to change, and try to fix these problems before they become very harmful to us and the world we live in. It is heartbreaking that this issue is actually going on right now.

 

Williams, C. (2025, September 1). 1.2 million immigrants are gone from the US labor force under Trump, preliminary data shows. ABC7 Los Angeles. https://abc7.com/post/12-million-immigrants-are-gone-us-labor-force-trump-preliminary-data/17713052/ 

Krieger, S. (2025, October 3). The price of cruelty: How trump’s mass deportation agenda endangers us all. National Immigration Law Center . https://www.nilc.org/articles/the-price-of-cruelty-how-trumps-mass-deportation-agenda-endangers-us-all/

Answer 2

This statement is true. Several of President Donald Trump's actions while in office have affected workers in the agriculture/farming industry.

After Trump levied tariffs against China, China halted all imports of American-grown soybeans, and has not bought any sense. According to the American Soybean Association, 54% of American-grown soybeans are exported to China. Without China purchasing American-grown soybeans, soybean supply has disproportionately outpaced demand, leading to an excess in product which is economically harming farmers.

Fear related to immigration enforcement has also affected agricultural workers. According to the American Immigration Council, worker participation has dropped following the Trump administration's immigration enforcement operation -- disproportionately among non-citizen workers (by 7.2% among this demographic). One study from the Social Science Research Network showed a decrease of approximately 155,000 agricultural workers across the United States between March 2025 and July 2025, while in 2024 between those months the number increased. The same study noted that prices of fresh vegetables and meat increased between the March 2025 and July 2025 period.

Sources:

https://sentientmedia.org/trumps-tariffs-are-hurting-soybean-farmers/

https://soygrowers.com/news-releases/soybeans-without-a-buyer-the-export-gap-hurting-u-s-farms/

https://www.americanimmigrationcouncil.org/blog/immigration-toll-on-local-economies-what-the-data-says/

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5384966

Answer 3

1. I found that there are mixed opinions on how Trump’s administration has affected farming culture. A farmer from Mississippi predicts Trump’s tariffs could be the greatest thing to happen to American agriculture if China becomes more dependent on US farming within a year. There is this opposite opinion where many farmers in rural midwest states have lost millions of dollars due to Trumps budget cuts for farming subsidies.

2.

Shontel Brown, a representative in the House for Ohio, spoke on how the Trump administration is hurting U.S. agriculture. Cuts on agriculture have devastated farms in America and farming bankruptcies are up 55%.

https://shontelbrown.house.gov/media/press-releases/ag-vice-ranking-member-brown-fox-news-op-ed-trumps-policies-are-hurting

3.

An interview with a man who owns a large farm in Mississippi says he thinks the tariffs could be one of the best things to happen for farmers. He views it as gaining a “competitive edge in the global economy”. These farmers believe the risk of losing their farms is worth the reward if China deals with the U.S. to become more dependent on American agriculture.

https://investigatemidwest.org/2025/06/24/trumps-tariffs-are-hurting-u-s-agriculture-some-farmers-still-support-them/

A news article with CNN says that China refusing to buy soybeans from American farmers will send US Agriculture spiraling. There was a recorded increase in the rates of suicides among farmers. Farmers make it clear they need immediate relief but the Big Beautiful Bill doesn’t provide aid until next year.

https://www.cnn.com/2025/09/20/politics/us-farmers-trump-tariffs-dire-consequences 

4. CNN could have a more liberal bias to it because it is known for being a left leaning news program. The article about the farmer who supports Trump has a negative tone, suggesting they might disagree which aligns with their values as a non-profit newsroom committed to transparency.

5. The article from CNN supports the claim I am fact checking because it provides additional proof from midwest farmers that there a struggle to stay in business due to Trump’s administration. The primary source from when Representative Shontel Brown spoke also supports this fact with that statistic that farming bankruptcies have risen 55%.

6. The article from Investigate Midwest is contrary to the claim I am fact checking because it is proving that their are farmers who believe and trust Trump’s plans. This shows their faith that he will work out a deal with China to keep US agriculture afloat, undermining the claim that Trump has had a negative impact.

Answer 4

Looking at California alone, the indiscriminate raids within Los Angeles have caused a 7.2% drop in the employment of noncitizens, indicating substantial shifts within the food industry.https://clc.ucmerced.edu/sites/g/files/ufvvjh626/f/page/documents/effects_of_federal_immigration_enforcement_4.pdf

There have even been instances of companies needing to shut down due to the loss of employees. A dairy farm in New Mexico reported that they must temporarily cease production after 11 workers were arrested during a raid. https://sourcenm.com/briefs/nm-group-condemns-federal-raid-on-lovington-dairy-farm/

Most importantly, the Labor Department has conceded that the stability of the domestic food industry is threatened by the Trump administrations and its policies toward immigration, with a recent document stating that the “lack of a reasonable and viable AEWR methodology, when combined with the current and imminent labor shortage exacerbated by the near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens, increased enforcement of existing immigration law, and global competitiveness pressures described below, presents a sufficient risk of supply shock-induced food shortages…” https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2025/10/02/2025-19365/adverse-effect-wage-rate-methodology-for-the-temporary-employment-of-h-2a-nonimmigrants-in-non-range#p-240

This evidence concludes that the trump administrations actions are negatively affecting the agricultural industry because of the current polices toward noncitizen workers.