As immigration crackdowns continue under the Trump administration, agriculture leaders have expressed some anxiety about undocumented workers in the industry.
While South Dakota’s congressional delegation acknowledged the need for labor reform, there’s no quick or simple solution.
Last month, USDA Secretary Brooke Rollins said mass deportations of undocumented immigrants are going to be done everywhere, and agriculture is no exception.
She said the plan was to have a 100% American workforce. That announcement has many in agriculture worried about labor gaps and how to fill them. Historically, undocumented workers have filled some of those gaps for producers and farmers.
Officials estimate that today, about 40-45% of the agriculture workforce is made up by undocumented immigrants.
The issue came up at a South Dakota Farm Bureau Federation forum at Dakotafest in Mitchell.
US Senate Majority Leader John Thune said the answer has to come in two parts. The first…“Secure the border! Which the president has effectively done.”
He said with that first part achieved, policy makers can look ahead to the second: fixing the labor system in agriculture.
He said the issue is finding a way to get the workforce here legally. Thune said the answer is going to come somewhere in the middle of the political aisle.
“I would say that in terms of legislating on that it’s been tried in the past; it’s very complicated. The Democrats holy grail on immigration is citizenship: they want everybody to get citizenship. And, of course, the Republicans it’s build a wall. And there are a lot of things that we could do that we could probably agree on," Thune said. "I hope we can get that back on track. I think President Trump is probably the right person to do that because he’s been so effective at securing the Southern border. And so if he wanted to lead a legislative effort on immigration, I think there’d be a lot of people who would like to work with him and partner with him on that.”
However, US Sen. Mike Rounds said there’s a big “if” ahead to any sort of resolution.
“Look, it’s not going to happen unless President Trump agrees to work with us. You can’t do it without having the Administration work with you on it," Rounds said. "But I do think also the fact that the president had employed folks in his businesses that were H2Bs, he understands it. He gets it.”
Rounds said he’s heard worker’s unions complain that immigrants are taking away American jobs, but he said that argument weakens when factoring in South Dakota’s low unemployment rate.
“And when you’re under 2%, it’s really tough to find people who are going to come out and work in the livestock industry, that are going to work in the dairies. But in other countries, culturally they still see that, and they see it as a way to get to America and eventually they see it as an opportunity for perhaps their children to have a better way of life a long time into the future," Rounds said. "They take the dollars, they bring them back to their home countries, they improve things there. So H2Bs and H2As I think are critical, but we need to modify them so that they work better for the ag communities in places like South Dakota.”
South Dakota’s lone representative in the House of Representatives, Dusty Johnson agreed with his Senate counterparts. He said with the Southern border secured, “That does give us an opportunity to start to have the conversation with the White House about what comes next. I was at the White House three weeks ago, the president said it himself," Johnson said. "He said, ‘We want to continue to have this be a country where some of the hardest working, some of the most talented people in the globe, want to come be a part of the American dream. Now, the details get really messy. But I think there is renewed interest in looking at how we can make these work visa programs serve our country’s interest.”
A bill in the US House of Representatives called the Farm Workforce Modernization act would reform the H-2A visa program for agricultural producers. The bipartisan bill has been introduced many times since 2019 and is currently awaiting action.
South Dakota Searchlight reports Rep. Johnson voted against a version of the bill in 2023, citing it was a “special deal for California” that hurt meat, cheese and biofuel processing.
Sen. John Thune told reporters after the event that while it might be an uphill battle, he thinks the president might have an appetite for revamping some visa programs.
"And I think lifting the caps on some of the visas: H2As, H2Bs, the ones that we use here in South Dakota, would be a great step in the right direction. But I think the longer-term issue is going to be trying to figure out how to codify and get some of these changes into law," Thune said. "And I think the president also has a lot of latitude there to work with, and I think if he can find some willing partners in the Democrats, I think you know, some sort of legislation policy, a piece of legislation that we could pass is not outside the realm of possibility.”
Thune said ultimately, that may be the best long-term solution for such a complex issue.
While South Dakota has seen small-scale deportations, no mass events have been reported at this time.
