Glenn Thompson

House Agriculture Committee Chairman Glenn Thompson (R-PA) is reportedly planning to roll out an expansion of the H-2A visa program, funneling more foreign workers into United States farm jobs. The move is likely to disincentivize farms from turning to robots and tech as a solution to labor challenges.

According to new reports, Thompson is expected to circulate plans that would see U.S. farms rely more on foreign H-2A visa workers over incentives for such farms to mechanize their workforce with highly productive machines and robots.

Already, the H-2A visa program allows U.S. farms to outsource an unlimited number of agricultural jobs.

PoliticoPro reports:

House Agriculture Chair G.T. Thompson (R-Pa.) is proposing an expansion of the H-2A farm labor program that could make it easier for employers to hire foreign agricultural workers, according to a draft bill obtained by POLITICO. [Emphasis added]

The long-awaited draft largely aligns with the priorities of growers who have lobbied Congress to expand recruitment options as they contend with nationwide labor shortages that have been exacerbated by Trump-era immigration policies. The draft’s text will likely change before the legislation is formally introduced. [Emphasis added]

Notably, the draft legislation would allow any contract under 350 days to qualify as “temporary” regardless of whether the underlying job is year-round, meaning operations like dairy farms would qualify for H-2A workers, a long-time industry demand. [Emphasis added]

Thompson’s office did not respond to a request for comment when Breitbart News reached out.

Many farms have mechanized, opting for milk machines, harvesting robots, and even fruit-picking drones. Critics of the H-2A visa program have argued that, rather than having farms import a foreign workforce, the government can offer incentives for farms to mechanize.

Increasing H-2A visas would come even as U.S. farms have repeatedly been found to use the program to merely import cheaper foreign workers.

Less than a year ago, for instance, the Department of Justice (DOJ) found that a Mississippi-based firm had funneled foreign H-2A visa workers into farm jobs even as there were American applicants qualified and ready to do the work.

Likewise, in 2023, the Washington Attorney General’s Office reached a $3.4 million settlement with a mushroom farm for firing its mostly female farmworkers and replacing them with mostly male foreign workers who arrived on H-2A visas.

RJ Hauman with the National Immigration Center for Enforcement (NICE) recently detailed how the H-2A visa program has ballooned in the last 20 years despite major advancements in mechanization.

“The H-2A program has exploded from roughly 50,000 workers in 2005 to nearly 400,000 today — an eightfold increase — while nearly half of all crop farmworkers remain illegal aliens,” Hauman wrote for The Federalist. “H-2A hasn’t replaced the illegal workforce. It’s been layered on top of it. The program isn’t solving the problem. It is the problem. Immigration policy should not function as an agricultural input.”