Op-ed: Trump plan to cut farmworker wages hurts America’s competitiveness

There was widespread outrage at President Donald Trump’s comments earlier this year that Immigration and Customs Enforcement shouldn’t enforce the law against farms employing illegal aliens. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins did damage control by saying that the administration’s goal remains that farms should have “a 100% American workforce” and that “ultimately, the answer on this is automation.”

So why is the Trump administration doing the exact opposite, encouraging farmers to import more foreign workers and to slow harvest mechanization? That’s what a recent Department of Labor regulation would do.

The rule reduces the minimum wage that farmers must pay to agricultural guest workers imported under the H-2A visa. The Department estimates that the wage cut will save farmers nearly 25% next year compared to what they paid visa workers this year. The savings could be even greater if farmers also take the opportunity to cut the wages of non-visa farmworkers, U.S. citizens, legal residents, and undocumented immigrants, who make up 80% of the agricultural workforce.

Farmers would undoubtedly be pleased with cheaper visa workers, but the new rule would inevitably have two consequences that are contrary to the administration’s stated objectives.

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[Read the whole thing at the Washington Examiner.]