SANTA FE, N.M. — U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins previewed a Trump administration coverage shift on Monday that will broaden entry to immigrant work visas utilized by American farmers.
The upcoming announcement will embrace reforms to make it simpler to use for the H-2A visa program in keeping with President Donald Trump’s twin targets of implementing immigration legal guidelines and supporting the meals provide chain, in response to Rollins.
“The president has remained very centered on the purpose of a 100% authorized workforce in our nation, however, on the similar time, guarantee we now have a protected and safe meals provide,” Rollins mentioned in response to a query from the Deseret Information.
Media reviews recognized Rollins as one of many key influences behind the Trump administration’s determination earlier this month to redirect Immigration and Customs Enforcement efforts away from the agriculture sector.
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins speaks throughout a gathering of the Western Governor’s Affiliation held in Santa Fe, N.M., on Monday, June 23, 2025. | Jack Spina
The Division of Agriculture has estimated that from 2020 to 2022 round 42% of crop farmworkers “held no work authorization” to be within the U.S.
Current office raids of fields in California led growers to report that 30-60% of staff had stopped exhibiting up for worry of deportation, the New York Occasions reported.
Rollins reportedly referred to as the President Donald Trump and relayed issues that this disruption would influence the nation’s meals provide.
On June 12, ICE brokers have been informed to pause “all work website enforcement investigations/operations on agriculture (together with aquaculture and meat packing crops), eating places and working motels.”
Why visa applications matter
However deportations aren’t the one concern for Utah farmers, in response to Terry Camp, the vp of public coverage on the Utah Farm Bureau.
“We now have had producers right here in Utah struggling to get H-2A functions accepted that haven’t had comparable points previously,” Camp mentioned.
Many farmers rely partially or solely on seasonal migrant labor to reap their fields as a result of it’s tough to search out workers who’re residents, the Deseret Information has reported.
Now that border crossings have come to a halt, Camp mentioned Rollins may use her affect to emphasise serving to farmers get the laborers they want.
Talking on the annual convention of the Western Governors Affiliation, Rollins mentioned that she and Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, who may even be talking on the occasion, have been “on calls all weekend” engaged on modifications to visa applications that might be introduced “in a day or two.”
“There’s a lot we will do to make the method simpler, extra environment friendly, to make sure that, particularly for our smaller to mid-size farms that don’t have the armies of legal professionals,” Rollins mentioned.
Rollins was on a telephone name Monday morning “with the White Home” speaking about methods to broaden the authorized workforce, she mentioned, as a result of doing so will assist Trump’s precedence of supporting American farmers.
The Trump administration will “streamline the present course of, clearly inside present regulation,” in order that farmers can safe the labor drive they want “effectively, successfully and never price prohibitively.”
The President of the Utah Farm Bureau, ValJay Rigby, mentioned in an announcement to the Deseret Information, that the wage calculations and seasonal limitations outlined within the present H-2A visa program have made its use more and more unaffordable for farmers whilst they face workforce shortages domestically.
“Labor is among the many largest limiting elements in American agriculture,” Rigby mentioned. “The present H-2A program fails to fulfill the wants of all farmers. We want congress to broaden H-2A to permit year-round staff for dairy farmers and others who need assistance all yr.“