Federal judge evaluates H-2A wage cuts

from Sergio Olmos and Wendy FryCalMatters

This story was originally published by CalMatters. Subscribe to your newsletters.

This article is also available in English. Read it here.

a lawyer by the Trump administration He acknowledged this week at a hearing in federal court in Fresno that “there aren’t enough Americans to fill these jobs,” while defending a policy that would lower wages for immigrant workers.

The lawsuit, filed by the United Farm Workers union in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of California, challenges a federal wage rule related to the H-2A agricultural visa program, which allows U.S. employers to hire temporary workers from abroad, mostly from Mexico, for agricultural jobs not filled by domestic workers.

The question is whether this new rule reduces wages in such a way that it spills over into the rest of the workforce and affects American workers by reducing their incomes. Federal law requires that the wages of H-2A visa workers not be lower than the wages of domestic workers.

The case underscores the agricultural sector’s dependence on immigrant labor at a time when the Trump administration is using military-style tactics to suppress immigration while trying to make it cheaper for manufacturers and farmers to hire temporary foreign workers.

Farmers say labor costs have been rising for decades and warn that if there is no change, some farms may close.

The union representing farmworkers has argued in lawsuits that employers, particularly those in the agribusiness sector, would extend the wage cuts to all farmworkers, including American workers.

U.S. District Judge Kirk Sheriff said he plans to issue a written ruling soon that would uphold or overturn the Trump administration’s policy.

The new interim rule divides H-2A visa workers into two categories, resulting in 92% of farmworkers being classified as “unskilled” and their wages falling into the 17th percentile of the median wage, meaning 92% of farmworkers will earn what the lowest 17% of Americans earn.

The Economic Policy Institute, a nonprofit think tank, has estimated that the minimum wage for many farmworkers will drop to $13.70 an hour . Their average minimum wage last year was $17.43. The minimum wage in California is $16.90.

Alexandra McTague Schulte, an attorney representing the U.S. Department of Labor, argued that the government has a duty to protect American workers from the adverse effects of H-2A visa workers’ wages.

The Department of Labor refused to admit that hiring foreign workers at low wages would affect the wages of American workers. Schulte said the proposal to lower the minimum wage for H-2A visa holders would not affect citizens because farmers are already struggling to find enough workers, meaning the demand for labor exceeds the supply.

In one conversation, Sheriff seemed to disagree. He said setting wages for the vast majority of H-2A farm workers at a level “well below that of similar workers, including Americans,” would hurt the market.

“Isn’t that just math?” Sheriff asked.

Schulte didn’t answer directly, saying, “I’m not good at math, your honor.”

Outside court, UFW President Teresa Romero said immigrant workers are in a weak position to negotiate for better wages.

“We know a lot of the workers don’t speak English. We know a lot of them are told, ‘If you don’t like it, go somewhere else,'” he said, adding that many of them are undocumented and don’t feel free to express their opinions.

Reconciling labor needs with immigration policy is a problem the United States has grappled with for decades, dating back to the 1950s and an Eisenhower-era program whose name was derogatory to Hispanics. The H-2A program is a direct successor to the Bracero program, an agreement between the United States and Mexico to hire 4.5 million temporary workers to fill agricultural and railroad labor shortages during World War II.

Today in California, temporary workers perform all kinds of tasks, from a herd of cattle even pushing strollers and they sell fruit cakes and ice cream according to federal records. The number of workers with certified H-2A visas was shot in California by 2022, but declined by 7% in 2023. In that year, about 88,000 of them entered the United States with a destination for work in California.

Trump’s mixed messages for farmworkers

The Trump administration has promised that the “largest deportation operation in American history” will bring better jobs and wages to American workers. However, he also quietly tried to cooperate with farmers to deal with their dwindling workforce. Senior Trump officials have acknowledged that the raids and crackdown have led to greater shortages.

In October, the Ministry of Labor wrote in a regulatory document that finding workers is harder after immigration raids.

The document states that the near-total paralysis of the entry of undocumented immigrants, added to the lack of available legal labor, is causing significant disruptions in production costs and threatening the stability of national food production and prices for American consumers. It also shows that American workers are not interested in agricultural work, nor do they possess the necessary skills to perform it.

It also contradicted US Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins, who said the agricultural workforce one day it will be 100% American.

Trump’s whirlwind of immigration policy changes that began in his first hours in office has created chaos in the courts and fear and confusion at the border for legal temporary workers.

In 2025, a group of approximately a dozen H-2A visa workers who had entered the United States legally through the San Ysidro Port of Entry to pick fruit in Fallbrook were ordered to appear in immigration court the next day and were subsequently wrongly placed in deportation proceedings. Some expressed their fear of going to prison in El Salvador for coming to work legally.

Trump announced in June that his administration was working on “some kind of temporary permit” for immigrants who are not legally authorized to work but have jobs in farms and hotels.

This article was originally published on CalMatters and was republished under license Creative Commons Attribution/Attribution-Noncommercial.