Behind every gallon of milk lies a multi-billion-dollar industry fueled by a workforce that, in the eyes of the law, technically doesn’t exist. This is the ultimate American paradox: a critical sector of the national economy forced to operate in the shadows, where a single enforcement rumor can halt business overnight.
At a recent panel at the IDFA Dairy Forum focused on immigration and the workplace, and industry leaders from across the political and geographic spectrum gathered to dissect a crisis that has moved beyond mere political rhetoric into the realm of business continuity and national food security.
The discussion, featuring Shannon Douglass (California Farm Bureau), Rick Naerebout (Idaho Dairymen’s Association), James O’Neill (American Business Immigration Coalition), and Julie Myers Wood (Guidepost Solutions LLC), revealed an industry caught between shifting federal enforcement agendas and a desperate need for structural legislative reform.
The Geography of Fear: California Versus Idaho
The impact of immigration policy is often dictated by the political makeup of the state in which a farm operates. Douglass, representing the deep-blue state of California, described a fear factor that can paralyze a harvest in hours.
“In June, specifically in the strawberry fields of Southern California, workers were afraid,” Douglass says. “We saw up to 60% of the workforce simply not show up because of rumors of ICE agents in the area.”
This instability doesn’t just affect the workers. It creates a ripple effect throughout the supply chain. In the Los Angeles area, it took nearly two weeks for harvest crews to recover their volume after a single week of enforcement scares. For many farmers, the chaos is more damaging than the enforcement itself, leading to shut-down crews and lost product when the timing of the harvest is most critical.
In contrast, Naerebout describes a different reality in the red state of Idaho. Under the Trump administration, Idaho has benefited from a governor who maintains a solid relationship with federal leadership. Naerebout pointed to a recent “New York Times” interview where President Trump admitted to instructing ICE not to focus enforcement on agricultural sectors.
“We have benefited from being a red state under this administration,” Naerebout notes. “But the risk is that as easily as he tells them not to enforce, he can tell them to start. We can’t be content with the current state of play. We have to keep ringing the bell for a permanent solution.”
The “Quiet” Enforcement and Supply Chain Disruptions
Wood, a former federal prosecutor and head of ICE, warns the absence of a large-scale workplace ICE Raid doesn’t mean enforcement has stalled. Instead, it has become more surgical and administrative.
“ICE is continuing to conduct audits on third-party staffing companies,” Wood explains. “Farmers and processors often find their biggest disruptions come through these secondary sources.”
Furthermore, the enforcement has moved downstream into transportation. Wood highlights aggressive enforcement regarding visa violations among truck drivers crossing borders. While these actions don’t make the headlines like a facility raid, they create significant short-term disruptions and long-term structural questions about how U.S. businesses secure a globally competitive workforce.
The “CEO Pickle” and the Dairy Gap
Perhaps the most significant challenge discussed was the unique position of the dairy industry. Unlike the produce sector, which can use the H-2A seasonal visa program, dairy requires year-round, daily labor.
“Don’t overcomplicate this,” Naerebout urges. “We need two high-level policies: a path to legal status for the current workforce and a viable year-round visa program for the future. That has been the ask for two decades.”
The “CEO Pickle” refers to the underground nature of agricultural labor. Naerebout shares a sobering story of a police chase that ended on a dairy farm, leading to a full-scale raid that decimated the operation’s workforce.
“Our industry is divided,” he says. “Smaller farmers feel like they can’t grow because they are operating in the shadows. We have a whole underground labor market, and we have to come up with answers.”
Linking Labor to the Grocery Bill
O’Neill argues the best opportunity for reform lies in connecting the workforce crisis to the consumer crisis at the grocery store.
“The primary driver of increased food cost is the increased cost of labor, and the primary driver of that is accessibility,” O’Neill says. He notes the political environment is shifting, with a general backlash against current enforcement styles — particularly among Hispanic voters — and a growing recognition that food inflation cannot be solved without stabilizing the farm workforce.
O’Neill highlightes that while legislative efforts like the Dignity Act and the Farm Workforce Modernization Act have been reintroduced, they require a bipartisan environmental shift to move forward. The goal is to move immigration from a fiery border security debate to a pragmatic discussion about economic stability.
The Path Forward
The consensus among the panelists was one of urgent optimism. The American public’s view on agricultural labor is softening as the link between labor availability and food prices becomes clearer. However, the industry remains at the mercy of executive whims and congressional inaction.
As Douglass concludes, the goal isn’t just about numbers or data; it’s about the “personal stories of the farmers”, and the resilience of the communities they support. Whether in a blue or a red state, the message to Washington is the same: the U.S. dairy and agricultural sectors cannot remain globally competitive while their workforce remains in the shadows.
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