47 Republicans Are Pushing Amnesty For Illegal Alien Agriculture Workers:
Dozens of House Republicans are pushing a mass amnesty bill that would expand a visa program for illegal alien agriculture workers and give many of them legal status.
Forty-seven Republicans have signed onto a bipartisan bill in the House that would allow illegal aliens who work in agriculture as of May 31, 2026, to obtain H-2A farmworker visas, giving them legal status and waiving some immigration violations like illegally obtaining an agriculture job in order to allow that to happen. It likewise allows employers that hired these illegal workers to bypass accountability.
“With the border now secure, it is time to address these shortcomings and provide fair and legal pathways for all of agriculture to obtain workers when they are unable to find U.S. citizens willing to perform these noble but arduous tasks,” states a Dear Colleague letter from bill author Rep. Glenn Thompson, R-Penn., chairman of the House Agriculture Committee, according to Politico.
Another document explaining the bill says it will “ensure that aliens who have self-deported or those who are here and currently working in agriculture but whose only crime is unlawfully obtaining employment will be eligible to apply for H-2A status.”
According to the Department of Labor, a survey suggests that around 327,000 agriculture workers are not authorized to work in the United States. But that only takes into account crop production, whereas “dairy, poultry, hog, or other livestock-related” production is not included, meaning the number is likely considerably higher.
A significant plurality of crop farmworkers have no work authorization whatsoever, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which states, “In 2020–22, 32 percent of crop farmworkers were U.S. born, 7 percent were immigrants who had obtained U.S. citizenship, 19 percent were other authorized immigrants (primarily permanent residents or green-card holders), and the remaining 42 percent held no work authorization.” That number also appears to leave out a count for livestock and dairy.
Politico reported that the bill is a reflection of the goals of some agriculture industry lobbies. The American Farm Bureau Federation came out in strong support of the bill, noting that it declares H-2A workers to be “essential.”
That means the bill shields such workers from adverse effects of a government shutdown, for example. --->READ MORE HERE
Thompson bill includes legal employment pathway for undocumented farm workers:
Long-awaited legislation from the House Agriculture chair proposes year-round H-2A, in alignment with industry demands.
House Agriculture Chair G.T. Thompson has proposed a sweeping expansion of a federal farm labor program that includes a path for some undocumented immigrants to apply for temporary legal status if they work in the U.S. agriculture industry.
Long-awaited legislation the Pennsylvania Republican formally proposed Tuesday largely aligns with priorities of the dairy industry and other labor-intensive sectors of the agriculture economy, which have lobbied Congress to expand recruitment options that contend with worker shortages exacerbated by Trump-era immigration policies.
Some provisions in the Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act of 2026, however, are likely to invite scrutiny and opposition from immigration hawks in Congress and labor unions. Thompson, in a Dear Colleague letter obtained by POLITICO, said his proposals are based on the need to reform a “broken” program despite the politics surrounding the southern border.
“With the border now secure, it is time to address these shortcomings and provide fair and legal pathways for all of agriculture to obtain workers when they are unable to find U.S. citizens willing to perform these noble but arduous tasks,” Thompson wrote.
Thompson’s proposal would allow some undocumented immigrants to apply for H-2A status if they had already been doing agricultural work in the U.S. The legislation would waive certain immigration violations for migrants so long as they otherwise qualify for the visa program, a provision likely to be opposed by more conservative members of Thompson’s party. ---->READ MORE HERE
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