On June 12, President Donald Trump said farmers were being “hurt badly” by his mass deportation agenda, and that he intended to address that with an executive order. The New York Times responded that Sunday under the headline, “Inside Trump’s Extraordinary Turnaround on Immigration Raids.”
Turnaround? Almost as soon as that Times story ran, U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins was on X begging to differ, emphasizing that Trump still intended to deport “EVERY illegal immigrant.” That includes the approximately 283,000 undocumented agricultural workers currently in the United States.
Monday came. NPR quoted Mike McCarthy of the Oregon Farm Bureau to the effect that agricultural workers appear off the table, balanced by a warning from Elizabeth Strater, a national vice president of United Farm Workers. No one should hold out hope, said Strater, “that the Trump administration is somehow going to look the other way” when it comes to agriculture.
The truth, though, is that looking the other way is the unwritten policy of the Trump administration. If that sounds like an indictment, consider that it has also been the unwritten policy of every presidential administration since Reagan’s, at least.
The Department of Homeland Security requires prospective employees to prove they’re eligible to work in the United States. To do that, they must provide employers with acceptable documentation, one of which is a school ID card. Google’s generative artificial intelligence is happy to help with this. “To create a school ID card online,” the AI overview states, “you can use various online ID card makers that offer templates and customization options.”
While a school ID card establishes identity, it doesn’t authorize employment. For that, a second document must be produced; for example, the Form I-197, known as the U.S. Citizen Identification Card.
If you’ve never seen a Form I-197, imagine something small enough to fit in an old-fashioned wallet sleeve, flimsy enough to wrinkle when damp — and readily forged.
So let’s say you are a potential worker with a school ID card from your favorite online ID card maker and a forged citizen ID card. You present these to your potential employer, who has not been trained to verify the authenticity of documents, and, more importantly, has no interest in doing so.
You’re hired! But of course, there’s paperwork. Your employer puts in front of you Homeland Security’s Employment Eligibility Verification form. You fill in blanks, check boxes, sign. Your new employer attests to having examined your cards, signs and puts the form in a file.
The closest Homeland Security gets to not looking the other way about this is the occasional audit and the E-Verify system, which allows employers to cross-check documents — like a school or a citizen ID card — against Social Security and Homeland Security records. E-Verify’s existence might shore up the argument that the Trump administration does want to verify the legal status of employees, were it not for the fact that E-Verify is voluntary. (Some states require it; Homeland Security does not.)
Behind all of this is the clear recognition that, without undocumented agricultural workers, the United States today lacks food security.
Less than a week after acknowledging that farmers are hurt by his mass deportation policy, and indicating his intention to do something about it, President Trump ordered ICE to continue raiding farms. Does he want to damage American food security? No. Does he like the optics? Yes.
It’s optics that count the most. An administration serious about deporting “EVERY illegal immigrant,” as Secretary Rollins put it, would tighten the employment eligibility-verification process and mandate E-Verify nationwide.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration says it wants to deport every undocumented person in this country, yet looks the other way while farmers hire them. It’s bread and circuses — and worse, exploitation, because it consigns undocumented workers to a perpetual state of fear.
The real underlying message to workers is this: We need you. You need money. Very well then, stay, but in the shadows. In the shadows, that is, until it’s politically expedient for us to shine a big, bright light on an unlucky few of you. As for the rest of you: Shut up and keep working.
