California farmworkers once again in Trump’s deportation cross hairs
.JPG "A worker follows a raisin harvesting machine at a farm near Fresno in this 2021 photo.")
An apparent pause in the search for undocumented workers in agriculture has been restarted by President Donald Trump, sending renewed fear and frustration through the state’s multi-billion dollar farming community.
Farmers and worker advocates had been pleading with The White House for months to give the agriculture industry some flexibility in dealing with their largely undocumented workforce.
By some estimates, at least half of the 500,000 workers in California are not authorized to work in the U.S.
A loss of that many workers would be devastating, said Manuel Cunha Jr., president of the Fresno-based Nisei Farmers League.
Cunha is among the local agriculture leaders who saw a glimmer of hope in Trump’s recent social media posts about wanting to exempt the agriculture and hotel industries from his nationwide immigration crackdown.
“Our great farmers and people in the Hotel and Leisure business have been stating that our very aggressive policy on immigration is taking very good, long time workers away from them, with those jobs being almost impossible to replace,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social page. “That is not good…Changes are coming!”
On Monday, Trump changed his position, according to the Washington Post.
The Post reported that the Department of Homeland Security told its staff it was reversing guidance issued last week that agents were not to conduct immigration raids at farms, hotels and restaurants.
“I am very disappointed, very disappointed,” said Cunha. “Even the Secretary of Agriculture stood up for farmers and now we have this news. This is not good for anybody.”
Cunha and others are concerned what this could mean for farmers, workers and the communities where they live.
“What we are going to see is a ripple effect once they bust one of our packinghouses, because then people will be scared to go to work and that will extend from the packinghouses to the fields,” he said. “This will cause tremendous economic damage.”
United Farm Workers officials on Tuesday said they have been reaching out to employers about how to protect their employees at their worksites and legally limit access by immigration agents.
“Instead of viewing us as an adversary, we’re hearing from agricultural employers seeking our advice and resources on how to protect their operation,” according to a UFW statement. “Farmworkers can’t be left to the whims of Donald Trump and whoever spoke to him last.”
This story was originally published June 18, 2025 at 1:31 PM with the headline "California farmworkers once again in Trump’s deportation cross hairs."
