How Mass Deportation Will Disrupt America’s Food Supply Chain
Grocery prices might not be rising as quickly as in previous years, but they were still a major factor in getting people to the polls during this month’s elections. According to A.P. VoteCast, 96 percent of those surveyed considered high prices for gas, groceries, and other goods when they voted.
But the centerpiece of President-elect Donald Trump’s immigration policy—his proposal to deport millions of undocumented immigrants—could badly disrupt the country’s food supply and raise grocery costs, given the share of farmworkers and food workers who are undocumented. That possibility is a reminder of how urgently the U.S. needs to reform its agricultural visas and related pathways.
Immigrants make up a disproportionate share of the country’s food production work force, including through the H-2A program, which provides visas for temporary agricultural workers. Though 17 percent of civilian workers from 2017 to 2021 were immigrants, per the Migration Policy Institute, 28 percent of agricultural workers, 25 percent of food production workers, 22 percent of grocery and farm product wholesalers, and 31 percent of crop production workers were foreign-born. Over one-third of meat processing workers and commercial bakery workers were immigrants.
Undocumented immigrants are heavily represented among foreign-born food production workers. Though they make up just 5 percent of the country’s labor force, undocumented immigrants represented 15 percent of food production workers and 12 percent of food processing workers, an Investigate Midwest analysis of U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) and Pew Research Center data found. From 2020 to 2022, 42 percent of farmworkers were undocumented, according to the USDA’s Economic Research Service.
Mass deportation could create labor shortages across many parts of America’s food supply chain, limiting harvesting and production capacity for farms, wholesalers, and other businesses, and raising prices for consumers. Even a more modest version of Trump’s deportation plan—which Vice President–elect J.D. Vance has suggested might involve removing 1 million people per year—would d
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