Jun 13, 2025

NPC welcomes Trump comments addressing agricultural workers

In comments during a June 12 news conference, President Donald Trump seemed to suggest support for changes to immigration enforcement that would avoid targeting farm workers.

Immigration raids are drawing protests in major U.S. cities such as Los Angeles and Chicago. In his comments at a White House news conference, Trump denied U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement officials are targeting agricultural workers.

“Our farmers are being hurt badly by — you know, they have very good workers. They’ve worked for them for 20 years,” Trump said. “They’re not citizens, but they’ve turned out to be, you know, great. And we’re going to have to do something about that. We can’t take farmers and take all their people and send them back because they don’t have maybe what they’re supposed to have, maybe not.

“And you know what’s going to happen and what is happening? They get rid of some of the people because, you know, you go into a farm and you look and people don’t — they’ve been there for 20, 25 years and they’ve worked great. And the owner of the farm loves them and everything else. And then you’re supposed to throw them out and you know what happens? They end up hiring the people, the criminals that have come in, the murderers from prisons and everything else.

“So we’re going to have an order on that pretty soon. I think we can’t do that to our farmers and leisure too — hotels. We’re going to have to use a lot of common sense on that.”

Uncertain focus

The National Potato Council welcomed Trump’s comments in a statement, even as reports from the White House seemed to negate them.

“American agriculture, including the potato industry, relies on a stable and experienced workforce to plant, harvest, and process our crops,” NPC CEO Kam Quarles said. “We appreciate President Trump’s recognition of the critical role farm workers play in ensuring our nation’s food security and his commitment to addressing this issue with an approach that respects the long-standing contributions of these individuals.”

The Washington Post reported that after Trump’s comments, Department of Homeland Security officials told agents to pause raids on agriculture, including meatpacking plants, as well as restaurants and hotels. On June 15, however, DHS said the White House did not support that policy, according to the Post, with ICE agents told to continue raids at those businesses.

NPC has advocated for comprehensive agricultural labor reform that stabilizes the current workforce and creates a functional, predictable guest worker program.

“The president’s comments are a welcome acknowledgment of the realities faced by our growers,” Quarles said. “Disruptive enforcement actions that remove experienced agricultural workers create uncertainty for our family farms and threaten the stability of our food supply.”

Industry reaction

On June 13, the California Farm Bureau released a statement “in response to recent immigration enforcement activity.”

“California agriculture depends on and values its workforce. Farm employees are not just workers — they are partners in this industry,” Bryan Little, senior director of policy advocacy at the California Farm Bureau, said in the statement. “The current approach to federal immigration enforcement is having a disruptive effect on California’s rural communities and the farmers, ranchers, workers and families who live and work there.”

Without these employees, he said, crops would go unharvested, rural businesses would suffer and food prices could rise for families across the country.

“If federal immigration enforcement activities continue in this direction, it will become increasingly difficult to produce food, process it and get it onto grocery store shelves,” Little said. “A stable and reliable workforce is crucial to maintaining the nation’s food security.”

One-third of the nation’s agricultural workforce is located in California, the country’s leading producer of fruits, vegetables and nuts, according to the statement.

A June 10 raid of an Omaha, Nebraska meat production plant also made headlines. In that action, dozens of workers were taken away in buses, confusing company officials who told The Associated Press that they had followed the law.

Chad Hartmann, president of Glenn Valley Foods, told AP that he told ICE officers who carried out the raid that the plant uses E-verify, the federal database used to check employees’ immigration status. Hartmann said the officers told him the system “is broken.”

“I mean, what am I supposed to do with that?” Hartmann said. “This is your system, run by the government. And you’re raiding me because your system is broken?”

Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include comment from the California Farm Bureau and Washington Post reporting about White House reaction.