Pennsylvania is home to an estimated 155,000 undocumented migrants, according to the American Immigration Council. And around 30,000 of them may work in the state’s agricultural sector, according to estimates from the Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture.

With the state’s agriculture industry already facing a workforce shortage, President-elect Donald Trump’s promise to begin a mass deportation program at the start of his term next week could exacerbate the problem.

Lerae Kroon, a supervising attorney at the Pennsylvania Farmworker Project, said that a mass deportation program like Trump has pitched would “cause chaos and pain for everyone in the community.”

“Many undocumented workers live with and support multi-generational and mixed status families, who will be in economic distress,” Kroon said. “The labor shortage will only get worse as folks are swept up in raids – and even documented workers may decide that the risk is not worth it and leave agricultural jobs.”

According to Kroon, increased hostility towards immigration is already being felt in Pennsylvania.

“We have heard from clients and community partners who are scared,” Kroon said. “Anti-immigrant rhetoric is already driving folks further into the shadows, and we expect that will continue.”

Pennsylvania elected officials are urging the incoming Trump administration to proceed with caution, ensuring that any changes to the immigration system ensure that seasonal workers are able to enter the country legally.

‘Let’s see what the president-elect actually decides to do’

Speaking to a crowd at the Pennsylvania Farm Show last week, Gov. Josh Shapiro called filling workforce shortages in the state’s agriculture sector “critically important.”

Shapiro said his administration has made investments in agricultural education and apprenticeship programs to bring younger people into the workforce. He also said it’s important to ensure that immigrant and seasonal workers, who make up a large share of the agricultural workforce, are able to work in the country legally.

Though Shapiro didn’t mention Trump by name, the president-elect has repeatedly promised to enact “the largest mass deportation program in American history,” which he’s said will begin on his first day in office in less than a week. Trump has also floated ending birthright citizenship and potentially deporting entire families with mixed immigration status.

“We also need a thoughtful, responsible immigration reform at the federal level that prioritizes the needs of our ag industry,” Shapiro said. “I hope our federal partners will be able to come together to accomplish that.”

Asked during a news conference after his speech how he would support agricultural workers and business owners if Trump takes a more extreme approach to his deportation plans, Shapiro was noncommittal.

“Let’s see what the president-elect actually decides to do here — he’s said a lot of different things,” Shapiro said. “Our administration will be prepared.”

The Pennsylvania Department of Agriculture has estimated that nearly half of Pennsylvania’s crop farm workers, roughly 30,000 people, may be undocumented immigrants, according to 2017 census numbers. The American Immigration Council, an immigration advocacy group, estimates that immigrants, both documented and undocumented, make up around 9.7% of the state’s total workforce, according to 2022 data, and that a large share work in the agricultural sector generally.

According to Bailey Fisher, the federal affairs specialist at the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau, some Pennsylvania industries that rely heavily on migrant labor include dairy, mushroom, fruit and Christmas tree farms.

“The jobs that foreign-born farm workers fill are specialized, technical and grueling,” said Kroon, speaking to why migrant workers are so prominent in the agricultural sector. “They are also historically low-paying. As labor shortages in agriculture continue to grow, the work still has to be done and some undocumented workers are willing to do it.”

Trump has said at times that he would focus his early deportation efforts on criminals. He also told NBC’s Meet The Press after winning election that he would be open to deporting all undocumented immigrants in the country over the course of his next term. 

‘A devastating impact’ 

Shapiro’s response to Trump’s statements are similar to other remarks he’s made since Trump’s election in November. Other Democratic governors have taken a more hard-line stance, saying they will try to block deportation efforts or instruct law enforcement in their states not to cooperate with federal agents. 

As governor, Shapiro could take a leading role in shaping the state’s response to any deportation plans enacted by Trump. And he has some history of pushing back on Trump’s immigration policies. When he was Pennsylvania’s attorney general, Shapiro joined a multistate lawsuit to stop Trump’s family separation policy that saw young children taken from their parents. He also pushed back on Trump’s attempts to ban Muslims traveling to the United States and his first administration’s policies that made it more difficult for immigrants living in the U.S. to change their immigration status.

Pennsylvania state House Rep. Jose Giral (D-Philadelphia), vice chair of the Pennsylvania Legislative Latino Caucus and a member of the House Labor and Industry Committee, called for more measured immigration reform.

“President-Elect Trump’s mass deportation plan would have a devastating impact on our agriculture industry – our largest industry generating tens of billions of dollars in revenue and economic activity every year – and losing these workers would send everyone’s grocery bill skyrocketing,” Giral told the Capital-Star in a statement. “The federal government should focus on immigration reform instead of targeting hardworking and essential farm workers.”

But some Democrats, like Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, have shown more willingness to work with Republicans on immigration reform. Fetterman recently signed on as a cosponsor of the GOP-led Laken Riley Act, named for a young Georgia woman whose murder by an undocumented immigrant who had previously been arrested for shoplifting and endangering a child became a rallying cry for the Trump campaign’s immigration proposals. The vote in Pennsylvania’s House delegation was bipartisan. Democratic Reps. Brendan Boyle and Chris Deluzio voted for the bill along with all Republicans from the state. The Senate has yet to take a final vote on the bill.

The bill would require Immigrations and Customs Enforcement agents to detain undocumented immigrants who are charged with theft-related crimes like burglary and shoplifting, regardless of whether they’re convicted. It would also give state attorneys general greater power to sue the federal government for harm to their citizens caused by undocumented immigrants.

Recent polling shows that support for deporting undocumented immigrants has grown among the American public.

Pennsylvania’s recently-elected Sen. Dave McCormick (R-Pa.) also addressed immigration at the Farm Show on Saturday, saying that immigration reform should follow efforts to increase border security and slow immigration.

“Job one has to be closing the border, but I’m hopeful that as we get a little further into the president’s term, we’ll also be able to return to legal immigration reform,” McCormick said. 

Speaking specifically to the needs of Pennsylvania farmers, McCormick said, “in this community in particular, there are needs for H-2A and other reforms that allow us to have legal agricultural workers,” McCormick told the Capital-Star. “And these are jobs that are not replacing American workers. These are jobs that are left unfilled unless we have legal immigration reform

‘We’re already struggling to get enough workers’

As it stands, the H-2A visa program, which allows U.S. employers to bring in foreign workers to fill temporary agriculture jobs, may not be able to bring in enough people to make up for the loss of undocumented workers if Trump enacts a broad deportation program.

“The H-2A program, in its current capacity, I don’t know if it could handle that,” said Fisher, the federal affairs specialist at the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau. “We’re already struggling to get enough workers through the program.”

Fisher said the Pennsylvania Farm Bureau isn’t taking a stance in debates over immigration, but is talking with the incoming Trump administration to convey the seriousness of the worker shortage and seasonal migrant workers’ roles in filling it. 

The Pennsylvania Farm Bureau is advocating to let visa holders work for a full year, as opposed to just six months, and to make it easier for farmers to apply for the program.

Fisher also said that getting enough workers isn’t the only issue with the program. Employers relying on it have to fill out a hefty amount of paperwork, sometimes requiring them to hire specialized consultants. And with strict housing standards and transportation requirements, hiring seasonal workers can become expensive.

“We of course want to make sure employees feel safe and healthy,” Fisher said. “But we also want to have some practicality to it.”

But ultimately, Fisher said, reform may be difficult.

“The H-2A program is such a beast,” Fisher said. 

And there’s another issue. “We understand immigration is related to ag labor with the H-2A visa program, but whenever you bring up immigration it turns into this politicized topic and you can never get anything done.”

Fisher said she’s begun to hear concerns from business owners in the Pennsylvania agricultural sector about the potential impacts of a deportation program. But, like Shapiro, she’s telling them, “wait and see what happens. Right now a lot of this can be just rumors.”

Capital-Star reporter John Cole contributed.