The Trump administration’s renewed immigration crackdown, once hailed as a cornerstone of “America First” policy, is now producing distinctly un-American results: labor shortages on farms, rising food prices, and growing threats to the nation’s food security.
A quiet but extraordinary admission from the U.S. Department of Labor underscores this reality. In a recent Federal Register filing, the department warned that the “near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens” is destabilizing domestic food production and driving up costs for U.S. consumers, according to the Washington Post.
The acknowledgment lays bare a fundamental truth that many in Washington have ignored: America’s agricultural system depends heavily on immigrant labor—authorized or not
The data tell a troubling story. According to the Labor Department, agricultural employment fell to its lowest level in over a decade in mid-2025 before a modest rebound later in the year. But the sector still lacks the workers needed to plant, pick, and process the nation’s food.
A Bay News 9 report from August 2025 described the situation as “the largest farm labor shortage in nearly a decade,” with an estimated 155,000 unfilled positions. Meanwhile, FTI Consulting found that more than 56 percent of farmers report being unable to find enough workers, despite increased wages and recruitment efforts.
The shortage is forcing hard choices. California growers are letting crops rot unharvested. Dairy operations in Wisconsin are consolidating shifts. Meat and poultry processors in Texas and the Midwest are turning down contracts for lack of staff. A recent academic study of enforcement raids in Oxnard, California, estimated that stricter immigration actions cut local farm workforces by 20–40 percent—leading to billions in crop losses and price spikes of up to 12 percent on fresh produce.
In Connecticut, the ripple effects are real and immediate. According to the Connecticut Department of Agriculture, more than 35 percent of the state’s 5,500 farm workers are foreign-born, many of them seasonal laborers who travel up the East Coast for dairy, nursery, and tobacco harvests.
Since the federal crackdown intensified, Connecticut farms—especially in the Connecticut River Valley—have reported 20–30 percent labor shortfalls. UConn’s College of Agriculture found that these shortages have caused production delays, reduced planting acreage, and forced some small producers to forgo high-labor crops like sweet corn and strawberries altogether (UConn Extension, 2025).
As one East Hartford farmer told the Connecticut Mirror, “We have the land, we have the equipment, but without the workers, the season dies before it starts.”
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service projects that food prices will rise 2.9 percent in 2025 and 2.2 percent in 2026, driven in part by higher labor and transportation costs Prices for meat, dairy, and eggs are forecast to climb even faster.
In Connecticut, food inflation has outpaced the national average. The Connecticut Foodshare Network reports a 15 percent increase in food pantry demand since early 2025, citing higher retail prices and reduced local supply from farms constrained by labor shortages (Foodshare CT, 2025). For many families already coping with high housing and energy costs, even modest food price hikes deepen household insecurity.
The recent suspension of the USDA’s annual Household Food Security Report—a move reportedly criticized by experts as obscuring the extent of food insecurity—makes it even harder to gauge the human toll.
Administration officials have suggested that the H-2A visa program, which allows farmers to hire seasonal foreign workers, can fill the gap. But farmers and labor economists disagree. The program is costly, bureaucratic, and slow—often taking months to process applications.
According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, the total expense of hiring an H-2A worker—including housing, transportation, and insurance—can exceed $15,000 per season (Farm Bureau Market Intel, 2025). Even with record participation, the system cannot replace the hundreds of thousands of undocumented laborers who have historically sustained U.S. agriculture.
Connecticut farmers echo this frustration. Despite the state’s modest agricultural footprint, paperwork delays have left H-2A workers stranded overseas during key planting periods. The Connecticut Farm Bureau estimates that one in four farms using H-2A visas experienced “critical timing disruptions” during the 2025 growing season (CT Farm Bureau Brief, Aug. 2025).
The administration has floated the idea that American workers could fill these roles, perhaps through incentives or work requirements for social benefits. But this proposal ignores reality. Farming is physically demanding, often seasonal, and poorly compensated compared with other sectors. A Guardian investigation in July 2025 found that such plans were “widely regarded as unworkable” by farm owners and state agriculture officials alike.
As one California farmer put it, “We’ve tried for years to hire locally. Americans want the food, not the job.”
In Connecticut, similar recruitment efforts have failed. Local job fairs in Hartford, Middletown, and Norwich drew few takers for agricultural positions offering $15–$18 an hour for 10-hour days in peak season (CT Labor Market Bulletin, 2025).
The choice is not between border security and economic stability—it is about balance and foresight. Congress has an opportunity to deliver both through comprehensive reform. Measures such as the Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2025 (H.R. 3227) and the USDA’s Farm Labor Stabilization and Protection Pilot Program offer pragmatic steps toward legal, reliable labor while ensuring fair treatment for workers.
Equally important, long-term investments in automation and precision agriculture should complement—not replace—human labor. The technology to harvest delicate crops like strawberries or lettuce at scale is still years away (AgriTech Tomorrow, Jan. 2025). Until then, immigrant workers remain the backbone of America’s—and Connecticut’s—food system.
Immigration enforcement without economic pragmatism has created a dangerous paradox: a nation capable of feeding the world but struggling to feed itself affordably. The Labor Department’s own warning should serve as a wake-up call.
If policymakers continue down this path—tightening borders while ignoring the structural dependence of U.S. agriculture on immigrant labor—America’s food supply will remain vulnerable, and consumers will bear the cost.
Food security is not a partisan issue. It is a national imperative. And until immigration reform acknowledges that reality, America’s farms—and families—will pay the price.
Steven Delco of Southport has had a career spanning multiple fields, as a scientist, educator, and entrepreneur.