Joe Petrocco, a fourth generation vegetable grower, in one of his farm’s greenhouses in Brighton, Colorado.
Photographer: Chet Strange/BloombergTrump’s Wage Cut for Foreign Labor Is a Gift to American Farmers
As the president cracks down on almost all forms of immigration, he's making an exception for temporary farm workers
Joe Petrocco, a fourth-generation vegetable farmer in Colorado, is facing one of the toughest seasons he can remember, with rising costs for fertilizer and fuel as well as a looming water shortage after a dry winter.
But one part of his business is providing some optimism: As farms like his across the US get going on the planting and harvesting seasons, when the need for workers spikes, the cost of immigrant labor is set to drop. The cut could be more than $5 an hour in some places, reducing pay by a third. That’s thanks to a Trump administration move to lower minimum wages for foreign farmworkers who come to the US legally on temporary H–2A visas.