Francis Wilkinson, Columnist

Worried About Being Deported? Get a Farm Job

Trump says his immigration crackdown won't hurt agriculture. We'll see.

May 17, 2017 at 12:30 PM UTC

Francis Wilkinson is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering US politics and policy. Previously, he was executive editor for the Week and a writer for Rolling Stone.

Sanctuary city.
Photographer: John Moore/Getty Images

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Big agriculture is big business in America -- as long as it has access to a big supply of immigrant labor. Agriculture is significantly more dependent on illegal labor than any other segment of the economy. According to the Pew Research Center, undocumented immigrants made up about 5 percent of the total U.S. workforce in 2014, but about 26 percent of farm labor. When Georgia and Alabama cracked down on undocumented immigrants in 2011, crops rotted.

President Donald Trump’s vow to rid the land of undocumented immigrants is naturally a threat to agriculture. Or is it? Reuters reported this week on an April 25 meeting between Trump and agriculture interests: