Dairy farms would be destroyed if Trump carries out mass deportations


Some say the US dairy industry would collapse if not for immigrant workers.

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If not for his longtime Mexican employees, dairy farmer Hans Breitenmoser Jr. says he would be forced out of the business.

His herd of around 400 cows must be milked three times a day, 365 days a year. His 10 or so foreign-born employees have proven reliable, even though the pipeline for other workers in Lincoln County dried up long ago.

Many other companies probably feel the same way.

More than 30 million immigrants were in the US labor force in 2022, accounting for 18% of all US workers. Legal immigrants made up the majority of the immigrant workforce of 22.2 million people, according to Pew Research Center.

“It doesn’t matter if these people are from Mexico or Mars. It doesn’t matter because we need ‘X’ number of people to run the economy and if they’re not here, it’s not going to work,” said Breitenmoser.

Still, President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to deport unauthorized immigrants could spark a labor market crisis at a time when businesses are struggling to find hired help.

The threat of large-scale deportations was a cornerstone of Trump’s campaign as part of his promise to secure America’s southern border. Much remains to be seen about how the plan will be implemented, and many doubt whether it is realistic, but workplace raids are certainly a possibility.

“I’d be surprised if employers didn’t already have a handbook for what to do,” said Brian Jacobsen, chief economist for Annex Wealth Management, a Brookfield-based investment management firm.

Retail milk prices can skyrocket during deportations

By many accounts, immigrants provide most of the labor at large and medium-sized dairies. Many of these individuals work in the United States without authorization because, unlike seasonal agricultural workers, there is no employment visa available to them.

Still, dairies that employ immigrants are responsible for 79% of the U.S. milk supply, according to the National Milk Producers Federation, an industry trade group.

The loss of foreign-born workers would upend the industry and nearly double retail milk prices, the federation says. Consumers would also face higher prices for other grocery items if unlicensed workers were forced out of food processing plants.

Dairy farming would collapse in a “big, ugly, ugly way,” Breitenmoser said.

His farm has been through tough times, including a 2014 fire that destroyed his century-old barn and years of low milk prices that forced thousands of farms out of business.

Some farmers say they haven’t seen an American-born applicant in years, and it’s critical they have immigrant workers to fill those jobs.

“They’re good, decent people who get work done that otherwise wouldn’t get done,” Breitenmoser said.

For decades, lawmakers have been urged to create a visa suitable for year-round employment on dairy farms, but efforts have been stymied by politics surrounding immigration and the southern border.

Still, according to the industry, it is a worthy goal.

“Dairy farmers cannot lose their current workers without massive disruption to their farms and to rural economies. Employees who have worked on dairy farms should be able to continue working and obtain permanent legal status, as should their immediate families,” the National Milk Producers Federation said.

“The H-2A guest worker visa program, used by many in agriculture to attract seasonal foreign labor, does not fit the year-round needs of dairies, but could be improved to make the program workable,” it adds.

The Trump administration should encourage Congress to pass comprehensive immigration reforms, such as the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, a bill introduced in the 116th, 117th, and 118th Congresses.th Congresses, says the National Farmers Union, a trade group representing farmers’ interests in Washington, DC

The producers say they need immigrants

Many say American manufacturing, which has struggled with a shortage of talent, is long overdue for immigration reform, which Congress has not addressed in 30 years. There is a need for practical solutions, believes the National Association of Manufacturers, a business group with more than 14,000 member companies.

“The current system does not allow us to reach our full potential for economic growth and leadership. The system is difficult for both employers and applicants to navigate around,” says NAM.

Some of the group’s proposed solutions include reforming guest worker programs, creating a new visa category to address temporary economic needs, and establishing a fully electronic and mandatory employment verification system to ensure that undocumented workers do not displace American workers and that gives employers confidence in hiring.

Manufacturers in the Milwaukee area say they aren’t particularly concerned about deportations, but they are concerned about worker shortages caused by waves of retirements.

“The fact is, without immigration, we are a demographically declining country,” said Dale Kooyenga, president of the Metropolitan Milwaukee Association of Commerce.

For everyone’s sake, says Kooyenga, the problems at the US southern border must be solved.

But “if we’re going to enforce the border the way it should be enforced, then we have to drastically increase legal immigration because our economy depends on immigrants,” he said.

Expect opposition to deportations

Majorities of American registered voters said that immigrants — both undocumented and legal — mostly fill jobs that American citizens don’t want, as opposed to jobs citizens do want, a The Pew Research Center survivesy from August revealed.

Some also claim that Trump is bluffing about his threats of mass deportations.

As a presidential candidate in 2016, he has promised to deport all immigrants living illegally in the United States (then estimated to be 11 million people). He failed to do so, giving him one Promise broken on PolitiFact’s Trump-O-Meter pledge tracker.

Deportations were high during the first Trump administration, sometimes sweeping up people who were never charged or convicted of any crimes, but the number of deportations was lower than under President Barack Obama.

Trump also doubled the number of H-2A visas used in hospitality and other industries, said Rebecca Shi, executive director of American Business Immigration Coalition based in Chicago.

“I think because of his business, he understands why immigrants are important,” Shi said.

Still, Wisconsin’s immigrant community is concerned.

Both Immigration and Customs Enforcement — known as ICE — and Customs and Border Protection — known as CBP — are able to make deportation arrests even if local law enforcement is uncooperative. And in about seven Wisconsin counties, including Waukesha, ICE agreements give local law enforcement the authority to detain people or even act as immigration officers.

Trump’s advisers have indicated they could try to expand the use of a process called “expedited removal,” which would seek to quickly deport people en masse by bypassing the legal system. People who have been in Wisconsin for decades, who have raised families here, could be swept up in raids.

“The anxiety level is extremely high,” said Steve Laxton, an immigration attorney in Sparta.

“I think one of the things we’re seeing is that people who are in legal immigration processes that haven’t been completed are concerned,” Laxton said.

In June, President Joe Biden took executive action to create a new rule allowing undocumented spouses of US citizens to stay in the US and work for up to three years while seeking permanent legal status. According to the criteria, they could not have posed a threat to public safety or national security.

Biden’s action was aimed at protecting about 500,000 undocumented spouses of US citizens from deportation, according to the White House. It would also have provided protection to around 50,000 people under the age of 21.

But earlier this month, a federal judge in Texas ruled that the Biden administration overstepped its authority and struck down the policy. With Biden’s presidency almost over, there is not enough time to appeal the decision.

Years of progress in immigration protections could be swept away under Trump, said Christine Neumann-Ortiz, founder and CEO of Voices of the Fronteraan immigrant rights group in Milwaukee.

Through protests and strikes, according to Ortiz, there will be resistance to deportations.

It is very important, she said, “that workers demonstrate the power they have.”

Sophie Carson of the Journal Sentinel staff contributed to this report.

This story has been updated to add video.