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By Questen Inghram, Yakima Herald-Republic

Has the H-2A program ballooned beyond the actual workforce needs of growers in Washington state? That has been the contention for years of the United Farmworkers of America, and the focus of a study recently published by UCLA’s Latino Policy & Politics Institute.

Study author Rosa María Navarro, a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, interviewed 75 growers, government officials and farmworkers, and surveyed another 179 workers.

Her analysis found that the H-2A program is being used a primary means of securing labor, displacing local immigrant farmworkers across the state and hurting "already vulnerable communities."

Navarro describes herself as a former immigrant rights and labor organizer in the study's biography. She was raised by farmworker parents in the Willamette Valley. Her grandparents originally came to the United States under the Bracero program, a similar guestworker program during World War II. Her family’s experience led her to want to study issues farmworker communities face in the Pacific Northwest.

One question she has wondered about has been the growth of the H-2A program in Washington state.

“I didn’t fully understand how fast this program was growing and what displacement meant, until I started talking to advocates and farmworkers,” Navarro said.

Her study, “Manufacturing farmworker displacement: How local agricultural workers are displaced in Washington state" was released in July.

It made the following findings:

• Growers use regulatory loopholes to treat the H-2A program as a primary hiring mechanism rather than a last-resort labor program

• State enforcement actions confirm that employer misuse of the H-2A program has enabled widespread gender discrimination against women workers and disproportionate displacement on Washington farms

• Expanded use of the H-2A visa program has reduced employment opportunities for local immigrant farmworkers across the state

• Loss of farm employment has triggered deep and compounding impacts for farmworker households amid heightened immigration enforcement

Changes proposed

The report comes as representatives from across the country, including U.S. Rep. Dan Newhouse, R-Sunnyside, have called for reforms that would expand the program further and make it less costly for growers.

As of the end of March, the Department of Homeland Security had approved just over 25,000 H-2A workers for the state.

Navarro's report recommends stronger labor rights for farmworkers across the state and a statewide biannual survey to accurately count the number of local farmworkers in the state.

It also suggests requiring the Employment Security Department to close the H-2A recruitment loophole and mandate meaningful outreach to local farmworkers, and investing and developing emergency rental and childcare assistance programs for all workers.

Recruitment process in focus 

Per the requirements of the H-2A program, growers who use it must demonstrate that there is a shortage of domestic workers before they can recruit foreign workers. During a process known as positive recruitment, they are required to hire all “able, willing and qualified” domestic workers and post jobs on both state and federal job listings websites.

Navarro’s study claims that not enough is being done to recruit local workers, and that has led to the growth of the program in the state. In her study, none of the workers Navarro spoke with knew about the websites. She said that farmworkers have historically attained jobs by going to farm offices directly, speaking with supervisors and hearing Spanish radio advertisements.

Bertha Clayton, the director of the state's Agricultural and Seasonal Workforce Services program, a part of the state’s Employment Security Department, confirmed to the Yakima Herald-Republic that there aren't many online applicants. 

“It’s something that ESD is certainly aware of, and it’s something we’re needing to address as an agency to make sure our processes and our recruitment are lining up with how these types of workers actually look for jobs,” she said.

“I don’t know if I would characterize it as a loophole, but rather a requirement that is probably not sufficiently monitored by the federal government,” Clayton said. The program relies on the attestation of recruitment outcomes from the growers themselves, she said.

One complication of the state website is the state is required to redact the employer name from the listing. The federal site doesn't have the same requirement. The state has twice requested a federal waiver to be able to show employer names, most recently in 2025. Both requests were denied by the U.S. Department of Labor.

The study quotes an anonymous ESD manager as saying that the number of H-2A workers in the state is inflated beyond actual labor needs, and that growers prefer the program because the H-2A workforce is more tightly controlled.

“I know that comment could not have come from my office … because we’ve always contended that we do not have a position regarding whether there is a labor shortage in Washington or whether the H-2A program is a good thing or bad thing. We’re the state workforce agency, and we just administer the program per federal regulation and per the state statute,” Clayton said.

Reaction to study

Navarro says that growers should be obligated to reach out to domestic workers who have worked for them in the last five years.

Enrique Gastelum, CEO of the Worker and Farmer Labor Association, said that growers are already required to do this. The association works with growers across the Northwest and is one of the nation's top employers of H-2A labor, according to the U.S. Department of Labor.

Gastelum said that the H-2A program is complicated and expensive, and the fact that the program is growing is indicative that there is a true domestic workforce shortage, especially since farms have been in cash-short times in recent years.

He said that he felt the study was done to fit a predisposed narrative. He points out that the sample size of workers that was surveyed was small and not randomized. 

“I’ll give it fair points. Is there wage theft? Yes. Is there unsafe housing? Yes, it happens in the labor market,” Gastelum said.

But he said the state attorney general is going after legitimate cases of labor fraud and abuse, and Washington has more oversight over the H-2A program than any other state.

“The bottom line in all of this is we don’t have enough domestic workers. We have a certified domestic labor shortage,” he said. He attributes that to the closure of the border following 9/11, an aging workforce and the children of farmworkers deciding to go into other industries.

Nothing about the results from the study was surprising to the UFW, especially the finding that domestic workers are reporting fewer hours offered as the program expands.

"I think it's just another validator of what the UFW hears. There's not a lot of funding and research dollars that go to study the actual workers," said Areli Arteaga, UFW political director.