Farm workers sue Trump administration

Workers fight back against Labor Department rule that will take billions from workers’ pockets to hand to their employers

WASHINGTON, D.C. (November 24, 2025) — Eighteen farmworkers filed a lawsuit to reverse a Trump administration rule that would lower wages for farm workers across the U.S. Joined by the United Farm Workers and aallied organizations, the suit challenges a Department of Labor rule issued in October that rule that cuts the wages of H-2A workers between $5 to $7 per hour. The H2A visa program grants temporary work status to workers coming to the U.S. for agriculture jobs. The United Farm Workers warn that the rule will both immediately lower the wages of any workers sharing job sites with H-2A workers, and make it financially easier to hire foreign H-2A guest workers over U.S. citizens and legal permanent residents.

“Although the rule is designed to drastically reduce wages of H-2A visa holders and U.S. workers who work for H-2A employers, it will undoubtedly hurt all U.S. workers in agriculture,” said Ron Estrada, Chief Executive Officer of Farmworker Justice in a statement.

The U.S. DOL estimates these changes will transfer $2.46 billion annually from workers’ pockets to the hands of their employers, a loss of $17.29 billion over the next decade. Plaintiffs in the lawsuit include U.S. farm workers from Michigan, Georgia, California, Washington, Texas, and Missouri, as well as the United Farm Workers and UFW Foundation.

Photo: UFW via Facebook

“President Trump’s wage cuts serve only one purpose: they make it easier for big agricultural corporations to exploit cheap foreign labor through the H-2A program and replace American farm workers, or avoid paying them a fair market wage,” said Teresa Romero, President of the United Farm Workers, in a statement. “Farm workers, and the rural communities across America they sustain, need and deserve fair wages and job security, not a race to the bottom.”

Farm workers are already notoriously underpaid in the U.S., doing backbreaking work for long hours, all to ensure there is food on grocery store shelves and home pantries. Rather than take steps to ease the burden on farm workers and their families, the Trump administration is instead giving a hand out to agriculture corporations.

“The farm workers who feed all of us while performing back-breaking work out in the unforgiving sun for hours a day should be able to also feed themselves and their families with the wages they make,” said Erica Lomeli Corcoran, Chief Executive Officer of the UFW Foundation. “Instead, this administration is cutting their wages, selling out American workers to please big agriculture and corporate monopolies. Reducing the American workers who feed our nation to living in poverty is immoral and unlawful. It was illegal when the first administration tried it, and it’s illegal now. We will see them in court.”

While the lawsuit to reverse this rule moves forward, UFW is encouraging farm workers’ supporters to also voice their opposition to this wage cut during the legally-mandated public comment period, which closes December 1.