1.2-M Immigrants Exit U.S. Farm Work Under Trump

By The Financial District
Sep 8
1 min read

It’s tomato season in California’s Central Valley, but for Lidia — who crossed the U.S.-Mexico border illegally 23 years ago — anxiety overshadows the harvest.

Immigrants account for 45% of jobs in farming, fishing, and forestry, 30% in construction, and 24% in services. (Photo: U.S. Department of Agriculture)

“The worry is they’ll pull you over when you’re driving and ask for your papers,” she told Corey Williams of the Associated Press (AP). “We need to work. We need to feed our families and pay our rent.”

President Donald Trump’s tightened immigration policies are reshaping the U.S. labor force.

More than 1.2 million immigrants vanished from the labor pool between January and July, according to preliminary Census Bureau data analyzed by the Pew Research Center.

That includes undocumented migrants and legal residents. Immigrants make up nearly 20% of the workforce, and account for 45% of jobs in farming, fishing, and forestry, 30% in construction, and 24% in services, Pew found.

The decline marks the first drop in the overall immigrant population since the undocumented count hit 14 million in 2023.

“We don’t believe the preliminary numbers indicating net-negative migration are so far off that the decline isn’t real,” said Pew senior researcher Stephanie Kramer. Trump insists deportations target “dangerous criminals,” but most people detained by ICE have no criminal convictions.