The White House’s decision to limit visas for seasonal farmworkers in order to limit the chances of spreading the coronavirus has the agricultural industry worried that they soon may not have enough workers to pick crops.
“Over half of our workers are expected to come in the next six months, so it is critical that we maintain that access,” said Allison Crittenden, director of congressional relations for the American Farm Bureau Foundation, the nation’s top agricultural trade group. The main planting season is rapidly coming up for farmers, she said.
The State Department has limited visa processing in many countries, including Mexico, to prevent the spread of the virus. The Department of Homeland Security on Wednesday stopped processing new applications under the H-2A program, which provides visas for temporary farmworkers. Returning workers can have their visas renewed, provided they received their last authorization within the last year. More than 77,000 H-2A visas were certified in March and April last year, about one-third of all recipients, according to the Labor Department.
Whether renewing existing visas will cover the industry’s needs is unclear, though, said Crittenden, because it is not known how many of the existing visa holders will return and whether they would be enough to make up for the loss of new applicants. About half of the applications under the program each year are new ones, according to the Western Growers Association.
Also, while about 90% of the H-2A recipients are Mexicans who would be able to return to the United States with relative ease once they obtained a visa, the remaining 10% come from locations such as Jamaica, South Africa, and South America. They were previously flown into the U.S., but that may no longer be feasible following the near-total shutdown of the aviation industry.
Crittenden said the trade group had been working with the administration to balance safety with the need for more workers. “Labor is the biggest issue facing us right now,” said Zippy Duvall, the trade group’s president.
