Trump’s H-2A foreign worker wage cuts blocked in major court defeat

On Wednesday (US time), District Judge Kirk Sherriff ruled unlawful a wage-cutting rule targeting seasonal farmworkers in the United States on H-2A visas, forcing the Department of Labor (DOL) to immediately develop a new wage formula. The Trump administration will also have to warn agricultural employers that it may owe backpay to both H-2A workers and US farmworkers if the adjustments are higher than what workers are currently paid till the new rule is developed.

Until a replacement takes effect, the Labor Department rule has been allowed to remain temporarily in effect. The 28-page decision issued Wednesday is tied to the rule DOL issued in 2025, which dramatically lowered farm worker wages across the United States.

Trump administration was sued over the wage plan

A dozen farmworkers and the United Farm Workers collective sued the Trump administration over the Labor Department rule last year, arguing that it would “undercut and adversely affect” wages paid to American workers and make it cheaper for farmers to hire foreign workers through the work visa program. The case primarily revolved around the ‘Adverse Effect Wage Rule’ (AEWR), the minimum wage most employers must pay foreign workers hired through the H-2A visa program.

The MAGA leader attempted to enforce a similar rule in 2020, but a UFW and UFW Foundation lawsuit blocked it at the time.

Even Wednesday’s ruling highlighted that federal law requires the DOL to ensure that hiring visa workers doesn’t “adversely affect the wages and working conditions of workers in the United States similarly employed.”

Judge Sherriff further wrote in his decision, “By setting the AEWRs for the vast majority of H-2A workers well below the relevant market wages through its use of the tier system, the IFR failed to reasonably consider whether its methodology could fulfill DOL’s statutory duty.”

Ironically, this particular development on the Trump-immigration front goes against most moves made by the current administration to limit even legal pathways to immigration benefits in the US. Despite a ruling that declared the current administration’s $100,000 fee on new H-1B applications an unlawful tax, Trump’s government has proposed a raised fee of $103,265 on H-1B petitions to counter that legal setback. 

These efforts have been fuelled by Republican-led arguments that “cheap foreign labour” is replacing American workers in the tech field. The Trump administration has even accused certain US employers of what it calls “visa fraud” or “visa abuse” for displacing American employees in favour of foreign nationals. 

Impact of Trump admin’s wage-cutting rule

According to the UFW Foundation, which advocates for farm workers’ and immigrants’ rights in the US, the rule resulted in wage cuts of approximately $3 to $7 per hour. Meanwhile, the DOL estimated it would “transfer” $2.46 billion from workers to employers each year.

A past analysis by the progressive think tank, the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), estimated that the Trump admin-induced declining wages for H-2A workers would negatively affect US farmworkers. It projected that the DOL’s implementation of lower wage rates could result in over 350,000 H-2A workers’ annual wages dropping by a total of $2 billion or more, representing between 26% and 32% of their wages.

The drastic changes would ultimately put “downward pressure” on the wages of American farmworkers working similar jobs as those on H-2A visas, bringing their annual wages down by about $3 billion, up to 9% of their total wages, according to the think tank.

Employers must prove that they couldn’t find an available American worker to hire through the H-2A visa program. However, given that there is no annual cap on the number of hires, the ‘Temporary Agricultural Workers’ category has emerged as the fastest-growing US work visa program, according to EPI’s numbers. They indicate that H-2A hires have nearly tripled over the past decade to 352,682 workers in 2024, with the vast majority of these visa-holding workers being employed on crop farms and their average job duration being roughly six months.

After the rule went into effect, wages in California dropped from $19.97 to $16.90 an hour, marking a 15% cut for both H-2A workers and US farmworkers, according to the UFW Foundation. Similarly, the analysis noted that both sides suffered a 14% cut, with wages falling from $19.82 to $17.14 an hour.

In a Wednesday statement, the UFW’s president, Teresa Romero, said the Trump administration needs to move quickly and produce new wage rates to “protect the jobs and wages of local farm workers.”

Disclaimer: This article is intended for informational purposes only and is based on publicly available immigration guidance. Rules and deadlines are subject to change; readers should verify current requirements directly with USCIS or consult a qualified immigration attorney before making decisions based on this information. Financial Express is not responsible for any decisions made based on this information.