Labor Shortages Hit texas Farms: future of H-2A Visas up in the air

By Uriel Escobar, urescoba@ttu.edu

More than 40,000 immigrants have crossed the border from Mexico over the past 10 years to work in the fields of West Texas. 

They pick fruits, cotton, tend cattle and do much more — all legally under the H-2A visa program.

It’s unclear how changes under the Trump administration will affect the flow or how many workers will return for the harvest this year.

“This work is hard; it’s not something many people here want.” Danny Gonzales, an immigrant worker from Amarillo said in Spanish.  I'm here to help my family. It’ll break your back. All we can do is give it our all.”

One inevitable reality is that American farmers are facing a labor crisis due to the decreasing number of domestic workers willing to take on the grueling physical demands of agricultural fieldwork.

Many farmers are turning to immigrant labor, while others rely on the H-2A visa program to fill the gaps in their workforce.

 The H-2A program enables U.S. employers to hire temporary foreign workers for seasonal agricultural jobs. Employers provide workers with temporary housing, wages above the minimum and transportation.

Beginning in 2005 with just over 48,000 positions, the H-2A program has grown sevenfold to around 378,034 in fiscal year 2023, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data.

Despite the program's growth, farmers face challenges with the application process, which is often complex and costly. Some hire farm labor contractors (FLCs) to handle the extensive paperwork and oversight of workers, leaving small farmers burdened with additional fees on top of application costs.

The program remains inaccessible to most small farms. In 2022, only about 12,200 agricultural employers used H-2A workers, representing less than 2% of all U.S. farms, according to the Wilson Center Insight and Analysis.

The stakes continue to rise as American farms shrink due to labor shortages and increasing material costs.

“Farm labor costs are going up... they’ve been going up roughly twice as fast as non-farm labor costs over the last five or six years," said Philip Martin, a UC Davis agriculture and resource economics professor, during a Woodrow Wilson webinar on U.S. farm labor and H-2A visas.

Even with wage increases, farms struggle to find domestic workers willing to undertake the demanding work that foreign workers sign up for.

Immigrant workers are being placed in a precarious situation, risking separation from their families as ICE traps target them, leaving farms with sudden labor cuts, according to a Woodrow Wilson webinar panelist.

Farms face mounting challenges due to labor shortages and the aging of their current workforce. Between 2003 and 2022, the average age of foreign-born workers increased by seven years.

Nearly 86% of the agricultural labor force is foreign-born, and many lack the necessary visas to work legally in the United States, according to USDA data.

As the H-2A program continues to grow, so do discussions about reforming it. However, even with an apparent increase in H-2A applications and acceptances, the process does not fully alleviate the labor shortages facing agricultural farms.

The Trump administration is making changes to help agricultural businesses find solutions to the labor shortage through lifeline programs like H-2A.

For now, however, many farmers continue to face the challenge of the administration’s policies that threaten their immigrant labor force.