House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson (R-PA) is reportedly planning to roll out an expansion of the H-2A visa program, funneling more foreign workers into United States farm jobs. The move is likely to disincentivize farms from turning to robots and tech as a solution to labor challenges.
According to new reports, Thompson is expected to circulate plans that would see U.S. farms rely more on foreign H-2A visa workers over incentives for such farms to mechanize their workforce with highly productive machines and robots.
Already, the H-2A visa program allows U.S. farms to outsource an unlimited number of agricultural jobs.
PoliticoPro reports:
House Agriculture Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) is proposing an expansion of the H-2A farm labor program that could make it easier for employers to hire foreign agricultural workers, according to a draft bill obtained by POLITICO. [Emphasis added]
The long-awaited draft largely aligns with the priorities of growers who have lobbied Congress to expand recruitment options as they contend with nationwide labor shortages that have been exacerbated by Trump-era immigration policies. The draft’s text will likely change before the legislation is formally introduced. [Emphasis added]
Notably, the draft legislation would allow any contract under 350 days to qualify as “temporary” regardless of whether the underlying job is year-round, meaning operations like dairy farms would qualify for H-2A workers, a long-time industry demand. [Emphasis added]
Thompson’s office did not respond to a request for comment when Breitbart News reached out.
Many farms have mechanized, opting for milk machines, harvesting robots, and even fruit-picking drones. Critics of the H-2A visa program have argued that, rather than having farms import a foreign workforce, the government can offer incentives for farms to mechanize.
Increasing H-2A visas would come even as U.S. farms have repeatedly been found to use the program to merely import cheaper foreign workers.
Less than a year ago, for instance, the Department of Justice (DOJ) found that a Mississippi-based firm had funneled foreign H-2A visa workers into farm jobs even as there were American applicants qualified and ready to do the work.
Likewise, in 2023, the Washington Attorney General’s Office reached a $3.4 million settlement with a mushroom farm for firing its mostly female farmworkers and replacing them with mostly male foreign workers who arrived on H-2A visas.
RJ Hauman with the National Immigration Center for Enforcement (NICE) recently detailed how the H-2A visa program has ballooned in the last 20 years despite major advancements in mechanization.
“The H-2A program has exploded from roughly 50,000 workers in 2005 to nearly 400,000 today — an eightfold increase — while nearly half of all crop farmworkers remain illegal aliens,” Hauman wrote for The Federalist. “H-2A hasn’t replaced the illegal workforce. It’s been layered on top of it. The program isn’t solving the problem. It is the problem. Immigration policy should not function as an agricultural input.”
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at [email protected].
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