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By Don Jenkins, Capital Press

PROSSER, Wash. — It’s harvest time and Central Washington farmer Jim Willard is short apple pickers. He doesn’t blame President Trump’s crackdown on illegal immigration.  

“Due to immigration enforcement? I don’t think so,” he said. “It’s the normal situation.”  

A labor shortage is normal, farmers have been saying for years. The Trump administration’s vigorous enforcement of immigration laws raises concerns that the shortage will get worse. Months into the campaign, U.S. agriculture has retained its workforce, including the large percentage whose employment is based on phony documents.

Federal law forbids employers from knowingly hiring illegal immigrants. Yet, the law also discourages employers from using their judgment. Employers must accept documents establishing identity and eligibility to work if they “reasonably appear genuine.“

“To do otherwise could be an unfair immigration-related employment practice,” according to a U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Service fact sheet.  

Illegal immigrants can get a Washington driver’s license by showing identification, such as a driver’s license from Mexico or a birth certificate, Department of Licensing spokesman Nathan Olson said. That takes care of identification.  

Social security numbers can be simply made up and printed on card stock paper. There are helpful websites.  

“It’s very easy to get very good-looking documents,” said Enrique Gastelum, CEO of the Washington-based Worker and Farmer Labor Association, a labor recruiter. “I’ve seen great documentation.”  

Keith Veselka, the CEO of Yakima farm management company NWFM, agreed. “Social security cards are easy to fake,” he said. “If you got the documents, you’re working, man. Why would I argue?”

Awash in fake documents  

The Des Moines, Iowa, school district paid a consultant $41,000 to vet superintendent candidates and still hired an illegal alien. Guyanan native Ian Roberts “provided the documents to show he was eligible for the position,” according to the consultant’s attorney.  

The counterfeit document trade has thrived since immigration reform in 1986 legalized 3 million people. To discourage future illegal immigration, Congress took steps to penalize employers for hiring illegal aliens.  

Since then, job applicants have had to attest on Form I-9 that they are in the country lawfully and eligible to work, and present supporting documents. “The I-9 process was effectively undermined by the ready availability of genuine looking fraudulent documents,” according to the Congressional Research Service. 

Presenting a fake social security card or green card to an employer is a felony under federal law, as is fraudulently attesting to having legal work status on the I-9. Possessing and using fake IDs is often also a violation of state laws.  

Congress created E-Verify in 1996 to stop the illegal hiring. Employers, voluntarily, can check documents from job seekers against federal records. E-Verify denied jobs to 241,983 illegal aliens in 2024, according to its annual report.  

E-Verify, however, is little used by agriculture. Only 612 agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting employers nationwide are registered to use the system. Nine agricultural employers in Washington are registered; three in Oregon.  

U.S. Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, reintroduced a bill this year to make E-Verify mandatory. Agriculture shudders.  

“I think you’d shut the country down,” Veselka said. “It’d get messy real quick.”  

Trump defends farm workforce  

Making up social security numbers can cause problems for the people who happen to have that number, like when they apply for unemployment and records show they’re working. But the Social Security Administration stopped sending “no-match”  letters in 2021, informing employers that a worker’s supposed social security number belonged to someone with a different name.  

The letters had a tortured history and were the targets of lawsuits. The American Civil Liberties Union accused the government of using “error-ridden” records to enforce immigration laws.  

The Obama administration stepped up “silent raids,” sending bookkeepers to audit farm payrolls, but illegal immigrants uncovered by the audits were dismissed, not deported, and moved on to the next farm. The One Big Beautiful Bill funds more Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents who could be used to conduct audits. ICE did not respond to a request to comment.  

If ICE steps up immigration enforcement on farms, it will be at odds with Trump’s acknowledgement that agriculture relies on illegal immigrants. “We can’t let our farmers not have anybody,” he told a cable news show  in August.  

ICE in July raided two marijuana farms in California and arrested 361 illegal immigrants. National Council of Agricultural Employers CEO Michael Marsh said he has not heard of more recent mass raids on farms.  

“I think the administration is kind of keeping its promise to take care of the farmer,” he said.  

Just the fear of deportation has the potential to destabilize the agricultural workforce, said Ben Tindall, executive director of Save Family Farming, a Washington-based advocacy group.  

“I’m not aware of farm operations as a general rule being targeted. I’m aware of a lot of concern,” he said. “It’s another thing farms have to face and work through when it already feels like the wheels are turning against them.”  

Help Wanted  

Immigration enforcement isn’t agriculture’s only labor issue. Washington’s new overtime law that removes the exemption for agriculture is “crushing,” Veselka said. Oregon has a similar law.  

Farms need more workers to avoid overtime and workers need second jobs to avoid pay cuts, he said. “They work for you Monday through Friday and work for somebody else on the weekend.”  

But immigration enforcement grabs headlines.   

The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported there were 155,000 fewer jobs in July than in March in “agriculture and related industries,” inspiring news stories about a “critical labor shortage.”  

The category includes forestry, fishing and hunting, and counts farmers and unpaid family members. The same BLS report showed there were 46,000 more wage and salaried jobs that month than in July 2024, a better comparison because of the seasonal nature of farm work.  

The USDA National Agricultural Statistics Service reported that farm employment was up 3% in April compared to the year before. NASS has discontinued the survey.  

The Department of Labor reports a slight increase in foreign farmworkers so far this year, though nothing out of line with past increases. The department this month adopted rules to lower the cost of employing foreign farmworkers. The department anticipates fewer illegal immigrants in farm jobs in the future.  

Gastelum said more farmers are inquiring about hiring foreign farmworkers for next year or the year after. “I think the interest will only increase, especially with a wage that’s a lot more manageable,” Gastelum said.  

The Congressional Research Service this year estimated 680,000 farmworkers are illegal immigrants and make up 35% of the agricultural workforce. It’s a larger percentage than U.S. citizens (27%), foreign guest workers (16%) or non-citizens with authorization to work in the U.S. (22%).  

It’s unrealistic to think illegal immigrants could be replaced by simply letting in more foreign farmworkers, Marsh said.  

The Labor Department doesn’t have the capacity to process that many applications for workers, he said. “There’s not enough hands to do the job, like on farms.”  

Solution standing by  

Kennwick, Wash., farm labor consultant Erik Nicholson said Congress can solve agriculture’s labor problem by passing the Farm Workforce Modernization Act.  

“We’ve got a solution,” he said. “Why is this even an issue?”  

The act would grant “certified agricultural status” to farmworkers. It wouldn’t be citizenship, but it could legalize one-third or more of agriculture’s workforce.  

The bill passed the House in 2019 and 2021, but didn’t get out of the Senate. A Heritage Foundation issue brief called the act a “clear-cut example of amnesty.”  

“Had they passed it, we wouldn’t have this extreme anxiety right now,” said Nicholson, a former United Farm Workers national vice president.  

“Even though farm raids haven’t happened, this year has been traumatic for farmworkers,” he said. “Parents have had to have conversations with their children about what to do in case mom and dad don’t come home.  

“My fear is this is the quiet before the storm.”  

Willard, the Central Washington farmer, said he won’t be sorry if people looking for trouble are deported. “I support the administration cleaning up those people who have warrants,” he said.  

And although he’s short of workers, the present system — dependent on reasonably genuine documents — works for him, he said. “The people who work for me are here to work and raise their families.”