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# What you should know: Trump's deportations and the impact on the food system
- URL: https://www.investigatemidwest.org/what-you-should-know-trumps-deportations-and-the-impact-on-the-food-system/
- Published: 2025-11-03T21:35:51.000Z
- Updated: 2025-11-03T21:35:51.000Z
- Description: The administration’s push to deport millions, along with the rollback of multiple immigration policies, has created labor shortages and fear from warehouses to meatpacking plants.
- Author: Ben Felder, Investigate Midwest
- Tags: Agribusiness, Labor, Meat industry, agriculture, Chicago, food system, food system policy, ICE raids, Illinois, Illinois food system, Immigration, immigration enforcement, TP::Investigative / Enterprise, Trump administration, meatpacking, Trump deportations rural areas, #wp, #wp-post, #Import 2026-06-18 04:56

*This series is supported by funding from the Chicago Region Food Systems Fund.*

Over the last several months, Investigate Midwest has been reporting on how the Trump administration is reshaping the agriculture industry through the rollback of immigration programs and a mass deportation campaign.

Here are seven takeaways from that recent series:

**Chicago-area raids have created fear among food warehouse workers**

Undocumented immigrant workers in Chicago's food warehouses face heightened fear of ICE raids and mass layoffs. This climate of anxiety has disrupted workplace routines and led to some workers leaving their jobs. The raids and policy rollbacks have also meant that the temp workers fueling much of this work have [become even more vulnerable to exploitation](https://www.investigatemidwest.org/threat-of-ice-raids-shadows-every-shift-in-chicagos-food-warehouses/), as they are now less likely to seek help.

**The Trump administration is challenging state efforts to protect immigrant workers**

Illinois lawmakers and worker centers have attempted to pass new laws and provide resources to protect immigrant workers, including education rights, driver’s licenses and legal support during ICE audits or raids. Despite these efforts, ongoing federal lawsuits and budget cuts at labor enforcement agencies have hindered progress, [creating additional vulnerabilities within the workforce](https://www.investigatemidwest.org/threat-of-ice-raids-shadows-every-shift-in-chicagos-food-warehouses/).

**Policy reversals have created mass layoffs at meatpacking plants**

Not only has the Trump administration deported thousands of undocumented residents, but it has also created more undocumented workers by rescinding various programs. This includes a humanitarian parole program, which allowed individuals to enter the U.S. temporarily to seek safety or escape political persecution. Many of those immigrants found work in meatpacking plants, but were recently fired, [including at a JBS plant in Beardstown, Illinois](https://www.investigatemidwest.org/immigrants-helped-save-this-illinois-meatpacking-town-trump-cut-hundreds-from-its-workforce/).

**Mass deportations are creating an agricultural labor shortage**

Large-scale deportations and the rollback of programs allowing immigrants to work in U.S. agriculture legally have significantly reduced the available workforce for farmers and the broader food system. Efforts to fill these vacancies with U.S.-born workers have largely been unsuccessful, leaving vital sectors like farming and meatpacking facing acute labor shortages. About 750,000 immigrants have left the labor force since January, according to the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan organization.

**Deportations are likely to expand the use of temporary foreign worker visas**

The Trump administration's aggressive deportation agenda is pushing the agriculture industry to rely more on temporary visa programs, such as H-2A and H-2B, rather than recruiting U.S.-born workers as Trump intended. Dairy, meatpacking and crop operations have [increasingly turned to foreign labor to fill jobs](https://www.investigatemidwest.org/immigration-panel-food-labor-foreign-workers-trump-immigration-policy/) vacated by deported or deterred undocumented workers.

**Expansion of the H-2A visa program offers only short-term relief**

In response to those labor shortages, the administration has modified the H-2A visa program, which allows some agricultural employers to hire foreign nationals for extended periods. However, this is widely considered a stopgap rather than a systemic fix — dairy and other year-round operations remain largely ineligible, and full-scale reforms have stalled without congressional action.

“The H-2A program is not the sustainable solution, but it is a short-term solution,” said John Walt Boatright, the director of government affairs at the American Farm Bureau Federation, the leading farmer advocacy group. “I do foresee the H-2A program continuing to increase in use, but by no means is that a measure of its popularity.”

**Political and administrative inaction hinders long-term solutions**

Despite acknowledgement from both government officials and industry leaders that labor shortages threaten farm viability and the nation’s food supply, there has been little legislative movement. A federal government shutdown and a lack of hearings in Congress have delayed substantial immigration and labor reforms, leaving small farms especially vulnerable [while favoring larger, industrial producers](https://www.investigatemidwest.org/trumps-deportations-are-causing-farm-labor-issues-he-hasnt-presented-a-viable-long-term-solution/) that are better equipped to navigate visa complexities and automation.