The Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation wants more flexibility in the federal immigration program for seasonal agricultural workers, according to board member and farmer Dave Daniels.
During a WisconsinEye interview published yesterday, Daniels said farmers in the state “harvest every day of the year, not necessarily just nine months out of the year.” He argued the current federal H-2A visa program is too limited, noting the WFBF is engaged with lobbying members of congress on this issue.
When asked if the immigration system is broken, he said: “I think it can be fixed, let’s put it that way. It needs to have an upgrade … some of the rules that are in place, they’re not flexible enough, especially for the dairy industry.”
Daniels’ own farm in Kenosha County has around 575 cows and relies on some immigrant labor from Mexico and central America. He explained the workers that come north to work there already have family members in southeastern Wisconsin, which means they have access to a local community support network and financial support.
“We’re also giving them opportunities by training them on how to do their work better, and everything else, so we feel they’re very important to us and we want to make sure we have a good way of helping them out, not only in their job but in the community and society,” he said.
The discussion referenced a Propublica article from last year that estimated about 6,200 immigrants work in Wisconsin’s dairy industry, though the exact figure is difficult to pin down.
“The immigrant labor has an important role, not only in the dairy industry but in the food sector and food security for not only Wisconsin but our nation too,” he said.
Still, he pushed back on the notion that Wisconsin’s dairy industry would “collapse” without immigrant labor, arguing that’s an exaggeration. The interview touched on former President Donald Trump’s threats of “mass deportations” of undocumented immigrants if re-elected in the coming presidential election, but Daniels seemed to cast doubt on if that’s doable.
“It would be quite the feat to try and do that deportation, but obviously we’ve tried to look at some of those issues and how we could work around that to a certain extent … I hope it doesn’t have to happen,” he said.
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