JUANA SUMMERS, HOST:
Most people tending America's farm fields were born elsewhere. Increasingly, they are foreign guest workers holding H-2A visas. The Trump administration has made it easier and cheaper for farmers to hire guest workers. That could mean fewer jobs and lower pay for domestic farm hands, and both conservative and liberal groups agree that's the wrong step to take. Frank Morris from member station KCUR reports.
(SOUNDBITE OF METAL CLANGING)
FRANK MORRIS, BYLINE: On a sprawling hay and row-crop farm near the geographical center of the United States in Belleville, Kansas, three Mexican citizens are working diligently getting field equipment ready for spring planting.
THAYNE LARSON: Yeah, you didn't see one phone in anybody's hand trying - you know, looking at the social media or...
(SOUNDBITE OF METAL CLANGING)
LARSON: That's what you get, just work, work, work.
MORRIS: Thayne Larson hired these men and brought them to his farm after they obtained H-2A visas. He says they're absolutely critical to his operation because nobody around here looking for a job wants the long hours and tough conditions of farm work.
LARSON: Yeah, it's a frustrating part and why we've had to try and really figure out the H-2A program, 'cause you're not replacing, you know, workers here. They're just filling a void that you can't do. If you're going to be in this business, you got to find people.
MORRIS: Finding people is a huge issue in parts of rural America, one driving some farms under. That's fueled a fast expansion of the H-2A visa system. In the last two decades, it's exploded from about 50,000 workers to nearly 400,000 last year, according to USDA. It draws people like Jose Reyes, who's worked on Larson's farm 15 years in a row.
JOSE REYES: Yeah, a lot opportunities coming to work here legal and send some money to Mexico, support my family.
MORRIS: Larson says he could use a lot more H-2A workers. He's got housing for them that just sits empty. But he says the H-2A program has grown too complex and expensive. Growth in farm wages has outpaced inflation. Larson says his total H-2A labor costs, including travel and housing, have risen to about $30 an hour on average. Some farmers say rising farm wages show up in the grocery store as higher food costs and make domestic food less competitive with imports. Last fall, the Labor Department abruptly changed the way that H-2A wages are calculated, cutting worker pay.
LARSON: Absolutely, it needed to be happen, 'cause you could not afford to pay.
MORRIS: The new rule also allows employers to start charging for housing that they had provided for free. For some farm workers, it was a $5 an hour pay cut. John Miano with the conservative Federation for American Immigration Reform says it was a huge transfer of wealth from workers to employers.
JOHN MIANO: It provides a subsidy for employers to bypass the free market. I can go in and go for a massive pool of cheaper foreign labor that undermines Americans.
MORRIS: Miano favors strict limits on immigration. But in a rare alignment between groups typically at odds, he agrees with the United Farm Workers union on the new wage rule. United Farm Workers President Teresa Romero says lower guest worker wages will hurt all farm workers.
TERESA ROMERO: How can you have America first and have this population that worked so hard, now pay them less and being replaced by people that are going to be here for a few months and go back home?
MORRIS: The farm workers union has sued to stop the pay cuts. It argues they illegally drove down wages for domestic farm laborers, who include citizens, legal residents on work permits and even undocumented workers. Romero says the administration is putting them in a vice.
ROMERO: What he's doing, you know, the deportations and the wage cuts, are a one and two punch. You know, keep workers afraid as you lower their wages.
MORRIS: While the farm workers union and immigration hardliners are pushing back on the administration's H-2A visa changes, bipartisan legislation in Congress would expand the program. Bills in play would allow H-2A visa workers to stay longer and slow wage growth. For NPR News, I'm Frank Morris.
(SOUNDBITE OF CHESSBOXER'S "I CAN'T TELL MY SECRET WEAPON") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by an NPR contractor. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Accuracy and availability may vary. The authoritative record of NPR’s programming is the audio record.