Pa. farm industry braces for raids, deportations under proposed Trump policy

In the early part of President-elect Donald Trump's first term in office eight years ago, mushroom and fruit growers across Pennsylvania experienced disruptions from raids by federal authorities. Their primary target: undocumented immigrants.

Dairy farms, poultry processing plants and other agricultural industries also felt the wrath of Trump's aggressive campaign to round up the undocumented, who overwhelmingly make up the farm workforce.

Across the country, the story was the same. Meat processing operations saw their workforce dwindle under the threat of raids and deportation. In the south, produce rotted in farm fields after workers fled.

What is poised to unfold in the second Trump Administration promises to be far more disruptive.

Trump, who made mass deportations the centerpiece of his 2024 campaign, has signaled he will implement the immigration provisions outlined in the Project 2025 handbook.

Trump has also hinted at denaturalizing immigrant citizens, ending birthright citizenship, expanding immigrant detention and deputizing local law enforcement and the military in order to execute raids and deportations.

The heightened rhetoric has raised fears that Trump's plans would be costly, divisive, and inhumane and cripple the growing, harvesting and processing of food products — even with temporary workers hired under the H2A visa program.

"If there are cuts to the H2A program and a crackdown on illegal immigration that leaves very few people left to work, like point blank even," said Sarah Lott Zost, a fourth-generation apple grower in Gardners and co-chair of the Mid-Atlantic Young Grower Alliance.

"Even if you're a legal worker, if you are related to a bunch of people who are fleeing because they are scared, are you going to continue migrating to work? Probably not. So we will lose a significant workforce if those things come to fruition."

Zost is among dozens of registered farm labor contractors in Pennsylvania that rely on the H-2A visa program for workers. The program is the official guest worker program of the US government for agriculture; H-2B is the program for non-agriculture, and represents most of the workers employed in the landscaping industry.

Zost, business manager at her family's Bonnie Brae Fruit Farms, said her workers all provide H2A visas, but she is fully aware of the reality of the migrant workforce.

"I mean the national data states that roughly 50% of U.S. domestic seasonal migrant workers are undocumented," she said. "I know that when Florida started saying they were going to crack down, illegal immigrants fled the state. I think there's always that possibility. Then you also have the problem of what if one or both parents are undocumented but there's four citizen children, what are you going to do?"

Her Adams County farm is part of the fruit belt that comprises 120 fruit farms and contribute about $580 million a year to the county's economy. The county is home to apple processors like Knouse Foods Cooperative, which sells the bounty of the region under popular brand names like Musselman's and Lucky Leaf.

"I don't think Congress will allow a lot of those changes that he just throws out there," Zost said. "I mean, I am worried, but I will be worried once there's some ink on paper and a law is proposed or regulation change is proposed or an executive order has been put forth. Until then, we'll just put our heads down and keep going because there is no other option."

According to the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture , there are an estimated 30,000 unauthorized hired workers in the Commonwealth; that estimate is based on national averages, which puts the figure of unauthorized crop farmworkers at 50%.

Anna Paciorek, a Chester County-based immigration attorney who works extensively with the mushroom industry in Pennsylvania, said the potential impact of increased immigration crackdowns on the mushroom industry in Kennett Square, the largest in the nation, would be devastating to the industry and the region.

"I would say that the bulk of the people that work for the mushroom houses are people who have either lived here for a long time and have worked in the mushroom houses for a long time, and that's what they've done, or people that are new immigrants who don't have visas, who have some ability to work because of the fact that they filed for asylum, and it's been long enough for them to get a work permit," Paciorek said.

Pennsylvania's mushroom industry fuels an annual $764 million in revenue. The demographics of the industry workforce has changed over the years from primarily Mexican natives to increasingly people from Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras. But in the aggregate, Paciorek said, the workers span the spectrum from authorized workers to undocumented immigrants.

"I'm sure there is an undocumented workforce as well," she said. "I mean, I don't know if the mushroom houses themselves are employing people who are undocumented or if people are providing documentation that maybe is not necessarily correct."

PennLive submitted requests for interviews with a number of growers for this story, including mushroom houses, dairy farms and landscaping wholesalers. None of the calls were returned.

Paciorek said that memories of immigration raids under the first Trump Administration are still fresh among communities like Kennett Square, one of scores of communities that have been transformed by Latino immigrants.

"I remember the ICE raids," she said. "I remember officers pulling people out of trucks because they had been in front of an apartment that got raided."

Paciorek is concerned about racial profiling, family separation, and the impact fear and uncertainty within the immigrant community stand to have on her vibrant community.

"There are so many people that live in Kennett Square that have been living there for generations, who are U.S. citizens, who grew up there, who are completely bilingual," Paciorek said. "And by looking at them, you wouldn't know that their parents are undocumented. These are kids who are U.S. citizens. You're talking about huge numbers of people who live in the community. There are so many mixed families. The kids, the undocumented partners and the undocumented parents of U.S. citizen children, some of whom are on the police force or may have been in the military, and sometimes they can't do anything to legalize the status of their parents."

Trump seems poised to make good on his deportation pledge, naming Tom Homan, his former acting head of ICE, to oversee border control and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem to lead the Department of Homeland Security. Both are considered immigration hard-liners.

Trump tapped as a policy chief Stephen Miller, architect of his anti-immigration agenda during his first term.

"The reality is that it's not possible to deport 11 million people, 12 million people, 13 million people, before this economy crashes," said Jasmine Rivera, executive director of the Pennsylvania Immigration Coalition.

"It's not actually possible, even if there was the money upfront to execute mass raids and deportations. You are talking about the workforce that is the backbone of this country. You're talking about the people who make up the vast majority of agricultural workers. You're talking about the people who are cooking in the kitchens, and feeding people, feeding communities. These are all the same folks. The economy will crash long before you get to 11 million deportations."

The American Immigration Council has estimated the cost of a one-time mass deportation operation could total at least $315 billion.

The council stressed the figure is a highly conservative estimate and does not take into account the long-term costs of a sustained mass deportation operation or the incalculable additional costs to remove over 13 million people in a short period of time.

"That's more than the government gives out in child tax credits," Rivera said. "So that's what the Trump administration wants to do with our tax dollars. And that's not taking into consideration that there will be lives lost in this process."

The dairy industry, already struggling with a labor shortage, stands to be hard hit by anti-immigrant policies.

"I one-hundred percent believe that the essential workers, and some of them are foreign-born, are very, very important to maintaining a workforce," said Dave Smith, the executive director of the Pennsylvania Dairymen's Association.

"I believe you hear that from most of all the sectors of agriculture, not just dairy. I think most of agriculture just wants a policy that has a clear path to workers that are documented," he said.

"A clear path for essential workers to work on these farms is the goal of all of agriculture because there are large numbers of essential foreign-born workers on farms, dairy farms, most of them are larger, but it is turning out that even some moderate, and mid-sized farms are seeking employees through this avenue."

Pennsylvania's estimated 4,940 dairy farms contribute to $11.8 billion in annual revenue.

Smith noted the dairy industry, like other agricultural sectors, is susceptible to drought, trade and global economics, all of which can have significant impacts on the bottom line for farmers and consumers.

As farms have gotten bigger, farmers have struggled to meet their needs for a workforce where the vast majority is foreign-born.

"I have seen personally, the smaller firms struggling," said Kelly Fortier, a Milwaukee-based farm immigration attorney who has worked with the dairy industry for decades. "When you don't have a stable labor force, it's a lot of pressure on individual owners and family members to do that job day in and day out, month after month, year after year. I mean, I've talked to many farmers that say I haven't taken a vacation in over a decade because I have no one that can do this for me seven days a week."

The dairy industry is hampered by the fact it is year-round work and not covered by the temporary work visa program.

"Dairy's had their hands tied in trying to get visas for immigrants that want to come to work on these farms," Fortier said. "It's a tough job and I speak with a lot of especially small employers that they're offering really good pay, they're offering benefits and they cannot keep workers more than a few weeks because who wants to get up at 5 a.m. seven days a week and come back at 3 p.m. and do that all the time? It's a very tough job. And the turnover on these farms with workers is incredibly high."

The looming crackdown on illegal immigration stands to exacerbate problems for dairy farmers.

"I can't tell you how many calls I get. The farm owner will call me and say, I've got this amazing foreman. I just found out he might not have documents. What can I do to help him? And 99 times out of 100, the answer is nothing. There is no work visa category for him. The way the immigration laws are set up, once you're undocumented, it's really hard to get back into legal status, even if you could sponsor."

Fortier describes the bulk of her work with farmers as "counseling," because there is rarely legal recourse when finding out workers are undocumented.

"I'm no economist, but if you don't have workers to milk cows, you don't have as much milk out there," she said. "I know demand has fallen in the dairy industry, and so maybe it won't be as dramatic as it could have been 10 years ago, but certainly if you don't have these workers, you cannot replace all these milkers with machines. So you will have less product, and that tends to drive up demand and pricing."

Beyond the economic impact, advocates worry about the inhumanity of the deportation process.

"How are you going to pick out the people that you want to deport?" said Paciorek. "What is that going to look like? Are you going to ask people for their documentation? Are you going to stop them while they're driving? Are you going to make them wear a stamp on their hand? You can't distinguish the people who have lawful status and people who don't. That I think would be very difficult. I think it would be absolutely devastating to the children in the community."