The H-2A program, which provides temporary visas for foreign nationals seeking seasonal agricultural jobs on U.S. farms, started nearly 40 years ago as an emergency initiative to combat a nationwide shortage of farm workers. Since then, it has expanded drastically.
Last month, the Trump Administration streamlined regulations for the H-2A program, lowered the prevailing wage nationally for these workers, and, for the first time in the program’s history, allowed growers to deduct rent from workers’ wages. This will depress wages for all farmworkers across the nation, robbing them of $2.46 billion and putting that money into growers’ pockets.
Local workers I’ve interviewed in Washington state in the past year say they don’t blame H-2A workers for coming to work on farms; they know it’s the growers who prefer this route because federal grants substantially subsidize this program, and because growers want a controlled, captive workforce.
As the Trump administration continues to ramp up ICE raids across the country, expanding the H-2A visa program cannot be the solution to protecting our agriculture sector. The H-2A program was created as a last resort for farms dealing with a shortage of willing and able local workers. But it has grown rapidly. In 2024, the Department of Labor certified 384,900 H-2A visas, and is hurting farmworkers.
Washington State has seen some of the fastest growth in H-2A program use and has quickly become the preferred labor force for growers over the last decade. In Washington, H-2A usage has increased by 1,000% since 2008. Last year, nearly 36,000 H-2A workers arrived on Washington farms. These workers now comprise approximately 30% of the state’s farm workers and close to 10% of all H-2A workers nationwide.
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H-2A operates within the same colonial legacy as the Mexican guest worker project, the Bracero Program, and is riddled with violations and abuse. H-2A workers, who come from rural communities in Mexico, Jamaica, and Central America, find themselves dealing with deceptive contracts and hiring practices, wage theft, and unsafe housing conditions. They often remain silent out of fear of retaliation, blacklisting, and not being brought back the following year.
H-2A guest workers are often housed in rural farms away from city centers, with growers and labor contractors controlling their mobility. To further isolate them, H-2A workers are discouraged from growing roots in the communities they work in and are spatially segregated on farms from local workers.
But it’s not just the H-2A workers who are negatively impacted. Expanded use of the program takes jobs away from local workers, disproportionately women.
I recently spoke with one local farmworker who was applying to work on a hops and apples farm just outside Sunnyside, Wash. The farm supervisor said they were not looking to hire women. Amid similar complaints, the state Attorney General’s office is now suing the farm for allegedly discriminating against local workers and replacing them with H-2A workers. This lawsuit echoes an earlier case against Ostrom Farms, which discriminated against women workers, firing them all and replacing them with male H-2A guest workers in 2021.
While women are having more difficulty finding work, all local farmworkers are being impacted by the displacement and fear that if the H-2A program continues to grow, within the next couple years, there won’t be work for any of them.
Sunnyside is a farming town in southern Washington State with approximately 16,000 residents, 86% of whom are Latinx. This small farmworker community has become the epicenter of farmworker displacement, as more growers bring in large numbers of H-2A workers, forcing local workers out of agriculture. Familias Unidas Por La Justicia, an independent farmworker union in Washington, estimates that nearly 85% of the local farmworkers are undocumented immigrants from Mexico. These workers initially celebrated the arrival of H-2A workers because H-2A workers are paid at a state-mandated rate that is more than $3 higher than minimum wage, and employers must offer local workers the same pay.
However, that initial joy has turned into a nightmare. As more H-2A workers flood Washington farms, many are now wildly overstaffed, with less work available for local workers.
As ICE raids against local farm workers continue across the country in states like New York, Vermont, and California, we must ask ourselves how we can support all the workers who put food on our tables. Mass deporting our local farmworkers is not the answer; they deserve to live and work with dignity. But expanding H-2A is also not a viable solution.
Instead, the millions of dollars going to this program should be reinvested in supporting a comprehensive immigration reform for all immigrants already in this country. At the same time, we need amnesty for all immigrants in this country, and real reforms for the H-2A guest worker program that protect workers from employer abuses and exploitation.
Farmworkers are the backbone of this country, and if the H-2A program continues to expand at its current rate, local farmworker communities that have built rural America may disappear. We owe them a better future.