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Trump Admin. Rule Hurts Farm Competitiveness ([link removed])
Labor Dept. regulation will mean more foreign workers
and less mechanization
WASHINGTON (November 25, 2025) – The approach of Thanksgiving brings increased media coverage of the farmworkers who help harvest the food on America’s tables.

Missing from this discussion is the impact of a new regulation from the Department of Labor which will allow farmers to cut the pay of foreign farmworkers with H-2A visas.

A new analysis ([link removed]) from the Center for Immigration Studies finds that the Trump administration rule will likely undermine the long-term competitiveness of American fresh fruit and vegetable agriculture by making the use of imported workers less expensive, thus reducing the incentives for mechanization.

The analysis, by Philip Martin, Professor Emeritus of Agricultural and Resource Economics at the University of California, Davis, notes that increased demand for fresh fruits and vegetables is met with “MMI”: more Machines, more Migrants, and more Imports.

For migrants, the Labor Department sets the “Adverse Effect Wage Rate” – in effect, the minimum wage, depending on region and skill level. Martin writes that “Farmers will be able to pay lower wages to H-2A workers in 2026, $8 to $17 an hour rather than the $15 to $20 an hour required in 2025. DOL expects the H-2A wage bill to drop from $6.6 billion in 2025 to $5 billion in 2026.”

The number of H-2A farmworkers has been growing rapidly, and the Labor Department expects that by 2030 the total number will exceed half a million, more than the peak in the 1950s under the Bracero program, when agriculture was more labor-intensive.

Of the implications, Martin writes, “If the new AEWR regulations save employers money, their focus may shift from investing in machines to replace workers to investing in housing for H-2A guestworkers.”

He concludes with a warning: The new rules could have the “effect of expanding the number of guestworkers rather than promoting the mechanization necessary for long-term competitiveness.”

The public may submit comments on the new rule ([link removed]) until December 1.
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