By Richard T. Herman, Esq.
Quick Answer:
President Donald Trump’s proposed mass deportation policies could trigger a U.S. food crisis by severely disrupting the agricultural workforce, including agricultural workers who are essential to planting, tending, and harvesting crops, and food processing labor force. This disruption would threaten the nation’s food supply, leading to widespread unharvested crops, acute shortages in meat and produce, and a significant, persistent spike in consumer food prices. The threat of this action, often enforced by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), creates a structural workforce crisis for the entire nation.
Key Data Point Bullets:
- Labor Dependency: Immigrant workers, both documented and undocumented immigrants, comprise a critical portion of the U.S. food supply chain and the stability of the nation’s food supply workforce, estimated at 1.7 million undocumented workers in the food system.
- Agriculture Impact: Estimates suggest that mass deportations could reduce the agricultural labor force by approximately 225,000 workers. Historically, U.S.-born workers have shown little interest in physically demanding agricultural jobs, making it difficult to replace immigrant labor with domestic workers. For decades, the agricultural sector has struggled to attract Americans to these roles, reinforcing the reliance on immigrant labor.
- Price Forecast: Studies project that the resulting labor shortage could cause higher food prices for Americans to increase by up to by 2028.
- GDP Impact: Macroeconomic models indicate that mass deportations could reduce the U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP) by to over the next four years.
How Dependent is the U.S. Food System on Immigrant Labor?
The U.S. food system is critically dependent on immigrant labor to sustain America’s farm workforce, with foreign-born workers filling essential roles from cultivation to distribution.4 Immigrants, including undocumented immigrants, represent about of all workers in the food supply chain. This high reliance is driven by the physically demanding nature of many agricultural and processing jobs that native-born workers often do not pursue.5 These roles often require long hours under challenging conditions, which many native-born workers are unwilling to accept.
The farm and food sectors rely on this migrant labor, regardless of their legal status or immigration status, for both seasonal and year-round operations, a dependency documented by the U.S. Department of Agriculture.6 The Labor Department recognized that agricultural work is among the most physically demanding and hazardous occupations in the U.S.
What Percentage of Farmworkers are Undocumented Immigrants?
Nearly one-half of the nation’s crop farmworkers are undocumented immigrants, making the sector acutely vulnerable to mass deportation efforts. A report from the Center for American Progress found that approximately million undocumented individuals work across the entire food supply chain. These figures highlight a deep, systemic reliance across the nation’s farms, especially in key agricultural states like California, Texas, and Florida, where the foreign-born workforce, including foreign nationals from countries such as Mexico, can exceed of the total labor force. Over the past several decades, the U.S. agricultural sector has become increasingly reliant on these workers, making it nearly impossible to replace large numbers of them with domestic labor.
What is the Immediate Impact of Mass Deportation on Food Production?
The immediate impact of mass deportation would be a crippling shortage of workers, causing significant disruptions to the food supply chain, leaving perishable crops to spoil in the fields. Enforcement actions by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) create an environment of fear. This anxiety often results in a “self-deportation“ effect, where undocumented immigrants simply stop showing up for work to avoid detention. Antonio de Loera-Brust, an organizer with the United Farm Workers, notes that anti-immigrant rhetoric and enforcement actions not only drive farmworkers away but also undermine labor organizing efforts in the agricultural sector. These enforcement actions, including immigration raids, further destabilize the labor market and intensify worker shortages. The resulting labor loss would remove up to workers from the agricultural sector, according to the U.S. Joint Economic Committee, guaranteeing unharvested fields and processing bottlenecks, directly compromising food security. The Trump administration admitted that its immigration crackdown risks food shortages and that American workers will not step up to fill labor needs.
Which Crops and Industries are Most Vulnerable to Labor Shortages?
Labor-intensive crops that require delicate, non-automated human handling would be the first to face ruin.9These include fruits, vegetables, and nuts, which must be harvested at peak ripeness. The dairy industry is also highly reliant on immigrant labor for its year-round operations.
Vulnerable crops and industries include:
- Fresh Produce: Berries, leafy greens, tomatoes, and tree fruits in states like California and the Pacific Northwest.
- Dairy Farming: Year-round milking and herd management requires a stable workforce that the seasonal H-2A visa** program** cannot fill.
- Food Processing Plants: The meatpacking sector, where one-third of workers are immigrants, would suffer severe bottlenecks in the food supply chain.
- Specialty Crops: Nuts, wine grapes, and other high-value, hand-picked goods are entirely dependent on skilled migrant labor.
Additionally, extreme weather events further threaten these crops, compounding the risks posed by labor shortages.
A single, large-scale raid in a growing region, such as the Pacific Northwest, could instantly wipe out the harvest for hundreds of acres.
How Will Deportations Affect Consumer Food Prices and Inflation?
Mass deportation would cause a sharp and sustained rise in rising food prices for U.S. consumers, significantly contributing to national inflation. When the supply of labor drastically drops, the cost of the remaining labor spikes. At the same time, the instability in the workforce can lead to lower wages for those who remain, as employers struggle to balance production costs. Farmers pass these dramatically higher production costs directly to consumers, creating “upwards price pressures” across the board. Economic research estimates the loss of the agricultural workforce would cause a major spike in costs and fluctuations in wages throughout the agricultural sector.
What are the Expected Economic Costs to U.S. GDP and Rural Communities?
The economic consequences extend far beyond grocery costs, hitting the overall Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and decimating rural economies. Deporting millions of working-age people removes both producers and consumers from the economy, leading to economic retrenchment.
The loss of immigrant labor eliminates the benefit these workers provide to America’s agricultural sector and rural communities.
Rural communities and policymakers must respond quickly to these challenges to prevent long-term economic decline.
Key economic projections show:
- Price Spike: Economists estimate that deporting a large number of undocumented workers could increase consumer prices by by 2028, according to the [Baker Institute] (https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/social-and-economic-effects-expanded-deportation-measures), a major inflationary event.
- GDP Reduction: Deporting up to million undocumented immigrants could shrink the U.S. GDP by to over four years, according to research from the [Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE)] (https://www.piie.com/blogs/realtime-economics/2024/mass-deportations-would-harm-us-economy).
- State-Level Impact: Agricultural hubs like California and Texas would face the sharpest losses. The Baker Institute estimates that deporting undocumented immigrants could shrink the Texas state economy by .
A new rule issued by the Department of Labor aims to address some of these workforce shortages, but its effectiveness remains uncertain.
The entire support structure of rural economies—small businesses, schools, and hospitals—would suffer profoundly from a sudden population collapse.
Can Automation or the H-2A Visa Program Mitigate the Labor Loss?
Neither agricultural automation nor the expansion of the legal H-2A visa program can fully replace the massive loss of workers from Trump’s mass deportation plans. While the long-term trend is toward automation, technology is not yet sophisticated enough to handle the complexity and diversity of most specialty crop harvests. However, for decades, the U.S. farm workforce has depended on foreign nationals to fill essential roles that machines cannot yet replicate. The immediate labor void cannot be filled by machines.17
What are the Major Criticisms of the H-2A Guest Worker Program?
The H-2A visa program is a temporary, seasonal legal pathway, but it is fundamentally unsuited to solve a structural workforce crisis.18 The program is limited to temporary or seasonal work, making it unavailable for critical, year-round roles in food processing plants and dairy operations.19 Furthermore, because the worker’s status is tied to a single employer, there are inherent vulnerabilities to exploitation and abuse, a serious concern raised by advocates.
Advocacy groups like the United Farm Workers have raised concerns about the program’s impact on workers’ legal status and immigration status, calling for reforms to better protect their rights.
What Does the Department of Labor Say About the Shortage?
The administration’s own Department of Labor has acknowledged that its aggressive immigration enforcement policies pose a serious threat to the U.S. food supply chain.20 In a [Federal Register filing] (https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/10/11/immigration-crackdown-food-prices/) detailing a new wage rule, the agency warned of a “current and imminent labor shortage” on American farms. The Labor Department concluded that agricultural employers will be unable to maintain operations without rapid action on labor policy, placing the nation’s food supply at risk.
This official acknowledgment cites several factors:
- Supply Shock: The Department warned that the “near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens” combined with the lack of available legal labor threatens the “stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S. consumers.”21 The Labor Department admitted that the current labor shortage is exacerbated by the cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens and enforcement of existing immigration laws.
- Worker Unwillingness: The Department of Labor explicitly stated that it “does not believe American workers currently unemployed or marginally employed will make themselves readily available in sufficient numbers” to replace the large numbers of missing migrant laborers.22
- Structural Crisis: The agency characterized the problem as a “structural, not cyclical, workforce crisis,” acknowledging that the reliance on foreign-born labor is deeply embedded in the agricultural workforce.23
The filing essentially contradicts earlier claims that U.S. citizens would step up to fill the vacancies created by mass deportation, instead arguing that new measures are needed to ease H-2A visa program access to prevent farm bankruptcies.24
The Department of Labor has also emphasized the need to verify the legal status of workers to ensure compliance with federal regulations.
What Other Anti-Immigrant Policies Impact U.S. Food Security?
Beyond mass deportation, related anti-immigrant policies can exacerbate the threat to U.S. food security by targeting immigrant families. Measures that restrict access to basic social safety nets can increase food security issues, even for authorized residents. These policies create a broader environment of hostility and instability for all working migrant labor.
How Do Restrictions on Food Aid Affect Immigrant Families?
Restrictions on federal programs like the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) create “public charge” rules, which punish immigrants who access benefits. This fear causes families, including those with U.S. citizen children, to avoid essential support services, which directly contributes to higher rates of hunger and malnutrition among vulnerable populations.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)
Q: Would native-born workers fill the jobs left vacant by mass deportation?
A: Historically, native-born workers have not filled the manual labor roles vacated by immigrants. The jobs are often difficult, low-paying, and in remote areas. Evidence from past deportations shows that employers instead turn to mechanization, reduce production, or simply fail to replace the lost labor.
Q: How quickly would grocery prices rise after mass deportations begin?
A: The rise in food prices would begin immediately due to fear-driven worker absenteeism and unharvested crops.28 Economists forecast that the full impact, with prices rising by over 9%, would be realized within three to four years as labor shortages become persistent across the entire food supply chain.
Q: Does mass deportation only affect agriculture?
A: No, mass deportation impacts every sector. Undocumented immigrants are also concentrated in construction, hospitality, and manufacturing. Losing this labor creates major challenges in the supply of housing, restaurant services, and processed goods, driving up costs across the board.
Q: What is the main structural weakness of the U.S. food system?
A: The main structural weakness is its reliance on a large, predominantly unauthorized migrant labor force for low-wage, high-difficulty manual jobs, combined with an outdated and insufficient legal immigration system (H-2A visa program) that fails to meet year-round needs.29
Conclusion: The Long-Term Stakes for the American Food System
The economic models are clear: the pursuit of Trump’s mass deportation agenda is a policy collision course with the stability of the U.S. food supply chain. The essential 25 share of undocumented immigrants in the agricultural workforce cannot be instantly replaced.26 The resulting collapse of harvests, labor shortages in food processing plants, and subsequent surge in rising food prices threatens American food security for all consumers.27 Ultimately, this approach would impose trillions in economic costs, shrink the GDP, and destabilize the very rural economies it purports to protect. A humane and sensible immigration policy is not merely a social issue; it is a critical matter of national economic and food security.
Author Bio/Profile
Richard T. Herman, Esq., is a nationally recognized immigration lawyer and a leading expert on immigration and the economy, with over years of experience. He is the founder of Herman Legal Group and co-author of the acclaimed book, Immigrant, Inc.: Why Immigrant Entrepreneurs Are Driving the New Economy (And How They Will Save the American Dream). Richard has been a frequent commentator on the economic imperative of immigration for organizations across the country.
- Learn more about his work on his law firm website
