Pennsylvania Farmers Decry Immigration Crackdown: 'Need People to Do the Jobs Americans Are Too Spoiled to Do'

Farmers in northern Pennsylvania are warning that the Trump administration's immigration crackdown is worsening an already dire labor shortage that has forced some to sell off livestock and others to leave crops unharvested.

In Tioga County, where Donald Trump won three-quarters of the vote in 2024, frustration is mounting, as a new sprawling piece by Politico has revealed. John Painter, a three-time Trump voter who runs an organic dairy farm in Westfield, told the outlet that his operation has struggled to survive without migrant labor. "The whole thing is screwed up. We need people to do the jobs Americans are too spoiled to do."

The investigation points out that the U.S. agricultural workforce shrank by 155,000 workers — about 7%— between March and July, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. Pew Research Center reported that total immigrant labor dropped by 750,000 during the same period. Farmers in Pennsylvania say those losses are being felt acutely in dairy, where year-round help is needed but the H-2A visa program does not apply.

Tim Wood, another Tioga dairy farmer and member of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau board, told Politico that he recently sold off 100 head of cattle after being unable to find workers. "People don't understand that if we don't get more labor, our cows don't get milked and our crops don't get picked," he said.

House Agriculture Committee Chair G.T. Thompson, whose district includes these farmers, has promised legislation to ease labor shortages, building on bipartisan recommendations to restructure the H-2A program. "It's hard to be more urgent than I have been on this issue for a couple years," Thompson said on Capitol Hill last week.

Sen. John Fetterman, who represents Pennsylvania, has added his voice to concerns about how immigration enforcement is affecting industries dependent on migrant labor. While supportive of the Trump administration's border security and deporting criminals, Fetterman criticized raids like the one this summer in a Nebraska meatpacking facility where more than 70 undocumented workers were detained. "We shouldn't target otherwise hard-working migrants that are just effectively, making a significant contribution to our economy," he said in an interview with CNN.

Farmers say they need certainty in order to plan ahead, something they feel Washington has yet to deliver. "It's a shame you have hard-working people who need labor, and a group of people who are willing to work, and they have to look over their shoulder like they're criminals," said Charlie Porter of the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau. "They're not."