If Trump deports farm workers, who picks California’s crops?

Do you enjoy fruits and vegetables? Assuming the answer is yes, come next year who do you think will harvest the oranges, almonds, lettuce, strawberries, tomatoes and the other 300-plus crops grown in California?

Who will work in the state’s dairies, meat plants and food processing factories, most located in the Central Valley?

Republican President-elect Donald Trump promises to begin a massive deportation effort the first day he takes office in January. Many Trump voters chose him over Democrat Kamala Harris precisely because of concerns about undocumented people who have illegally entered the United States. Trump vows to get millions of undocumented people out of the country. For the first time, even ag-rich Fresno County went for Trump.

Here is a sobering fact: According to La Cooperativa, a Sacramento-based farm-worker assistance organization, 75% of California’s farm workers are undocumented. Between one-third and one-half of all farm workers in America are in California — roughly 500,000 to 800,000 people. Altogether, there are 11 million undocumented people in the nation, according to the American Immigration Council.

Trump’s pick for border security, Tom Homan, a former head of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, pledges to “run the biggest deportation operation this country’s ever seen.”

Economists say that America prospers because of the undocumented workforce that takes demanding jobs in a range of industries.

Ana Padilla, executive director of UC Merced’s Community and Labor Center, said in an email that most workers in agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting, and landscaping are noncitizens. “Additionally, roughly half of the workers in animal production are noncitizens. One third in food processing are noncitizens. And about a fourth of food service workers are noncitizens.”

California growers produce a third of the nation’s vegetables and three-quarters of its fruits and nuts. California’s farmers must have a workforce for planting, tending and harvesting.

So here is advice for the president-elect and the next Congress: Create a deportation exemption or other legal status for farm workers and those in related industries. Otherwise, the food supply Americans depend on will be at risk.

Unemployed Americans have shown time and again that they don’t want to do the back-breaking field work or assembly-line slaughtering of meat plants that immigrants are willing to tackle.

Food supply

What could be a bad result of mass deportations of farm workers? For starters, higher food costs.

If a farmer cannot get a crop fully harvested due to a labor shortage, whatever crop does get picked will become more valuable and thus more expensive when it finally reaches the grocery store.

Americans will also likely have to depend on imported produce. Growers in other countries will see the opportunity to raise prices. America has long benefited from a low-cost food production system based on home-grown produce. If the United States starts depending on other countries for its food, costs will rise and national security will be weakened.

Agriculture is a huge part of the Fresno County economy. The county is one of the top-growing regions in the nation and accounted for $8.5 billion in gross revenues in 2023.

Just to the south, Tulare County is another top performer, accounting for $7.9 billion in gross sales in 2023.

The spin-off impacts of harm to farming would be immense in the Central Valley. From equipment sales to chemical suppliers to specialized services like irrigation and field leveling to secondary industries, like clothing retailers, tool shops and even restaurants, the Valley economy is built on farming.

Costly deportations

The American Immigration Council projects mammoth costs to the federal budget to carry out the deportations that Trump has vowed.

Using government data to make its projection, the council says it would cost $88 billion to deport 1 million people in the first year, most of that going to the creation of detention camps.

If Trump’s goal was to rid America of all its undocumented residents — the council’s estimate is 11 million people as of 2022 — the cost would total $315 billion. It would take a decade to realistically carry out such a huge deportation as imagined by Homan.

In 2022, undocumented people paid $46.8 billion in federal taxes and another $29.3 billion in state taxes, the council says. Undocumented workers contributed $22.6 billion to Social Security and $5.7 billion to Medicare. Undocumented workers don’t enjoy the benefits, but their revenues would disappear when deportations occur.

Farm economy at risk

The details remain to be worked out on Trump’s deportation promise. But when it comes to our food supply and agriculture, Trump and Congress need to figure out exemptions or legal status for workers. Short of that, the food we so easily take for granted will either become more expensive, or simply unavailable.