🚨 Trump’s Ag Secretary Wants to Replace Deported Farmworkers with Medicaid Recipients

😽 Keepin’ It Simple Summary for Younger Readers 👧🏾✊🏾👦🏾 The Trump administration’s Agriculture Secretary just announced a plan that sounds like something out of a dystopian movie 🎥. After promising to deport the immigrant farmworkers 🚜 who grow most of America’s food 🌽, she now wants to force people who get government health insurance 🏥 to work in the fields instead. This is happening because almost half of all farmworkers are immigrants 🌎, and many have been doing this specialized work for years or even decades ⏳. The idea that you can just swap out experienced workers with people who may be elderly 👴, disabled ♿, or have never worked in agriculture 🚫👩‍🌾 shows how disconnected these policymakers are from reality. The plan would essentially punish people twice — first by making it harder to get healthcare, then by forcing them into backbreaking work 💪 that doesn’t even provide health benefits 🏥❌. It’s a scheme that hurts both immigrant workers and American families 👨‍👩‍👧, while threatening to make food more expensive and less available for everyone 💵🍽️. 🗝️ Takeaways 🚨 Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins declared “no amnesty” for farmworkers while suggesting 34 million Medicaid recipients could replace deported agricultural workers 💊 The plan relies on new federal Medicaid work requirements that could force vulnerable Americans into physically demanding farm labor to maintain healthcare coverage 🌾 Immigrants currently make up 48.9% of all agricultural workers and 57% of crop production workers, with many having decades of specialized experience 👵 22 million people on Medicaid are over age 50, making the proposal to use them as agricultural labor particularly problematic and physically impossible 💰 The dairy industry estimates milk prices would nearly double if farmers lost their foreign-born workers, with agricultural output falling by $30–60 billion ⚖️ This policy represents the intersection of punitive immigration enforcement and healthcare cuts, creating a system that exploits both immigrant and citizen communities 🔄 The administration has no actual plan to address labor shortages caused by mass deportations, revealing the chaotic nature of their immigration policies 🏥 The scheme strips healthcare from the poor, then forces them into work that typically doesn’t provide health benefits — a perfect circle of exploitation 📈 Critics immediately compared the policy to failed historical programs like China’s “Down to the Countryside” movement under Mao Zedong 💔 The proposal exposes how this administration views both immigrants and poor Americans as disposable labor rather than human beings deserving dignity Give a gift subscription Trump’s Agriculture Secretary Wants to Send Medicaid Recipients to Pick Your Strawberries By Three Sonorans The summer heat of 2025 beats down on the borderlands, and the ironies are hitting harder than the Arizona sun. Here we are, watching Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins stand at a podium in air-conditioned Washington D.C., explaining to reporters that the solution to mass deportations destroying our food system is simple: just send Medicaid recipients to work in the fields. Trump’s Secretary of Agriculture leaks the Final Solution: Replacing immigrants with Medicaid recipients who will be forced to work now. ¿En serio? Did we just time-travel back to the cotton plantations, or are we witnessing the birth of a new form of economic conscription wrapped in the red, white, and blue rhetoric of “100% American workforce”? Let me paint you the picture of what happened this week, hermanos y hermanas , because this story cuts to the bone of what’s happening to our communities and our food system under this administration’s cruel delusions. The Secretary Speaks: “No Amnesty” and Magical Thinking On Tuesday, July 8th, 2025, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins declared at a news conference that there will be “no amnesty” for migrants and mass deportations will continue to achieve a “100% American workforce”. This came just days after Trump himself had suggested that maybe farmworkers could stay if their employers vouched for them — but apparently, Rollins didn’t get that memo, or she decided to throw it in the paper shredder along with any remaining humanity in agricultural policy. The audacia of this woman standing there, surrounded by other Cabinet officials like some dystopian cabinet meeting, telling the world that “there are 34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program” and suggesting these Americans could replace deported farmworkers is breathtaking in its disconnection from reality. According to The Hill , Rollins believes that “Medicaid work requirements and artificial intelligence will help bolster the nation’s farming workforce” while Trump weighs exemptions for undocumented migrants working on farms. The contradiction is so stark it would be funny if it weren’t so devastating. The Reality Check: Who Actually Works Our Fields Let’s get real about who feeds America, because Rollins clearly hasn’t stepped foot in a field that wasn’t a photo op. According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Economic Research Service , just 32 percent of crop farm workers in manual labor occupations were U.S.-born, and the share of hired crop farmworkers who were not legally authorized to work in the United States is about 40 percent. The numbers are even more stark when you dig deeper. As recently as 2019 , almost half — or 48.9 percent — of all agricultural workers were foreign-born, and more than one-fourth (27.3 percent) were undocumented. Among crop production workers specifically, almost 57 percent were immigrants, including 36.4 percent who were undocumented. These aren’t just statistics — these are our gente , our neighbors, our family members who have been feeding this country for generations. The average farmworker has worked for their current farm employer for seven years , and more than 80% of hired farmworkers work at a single location within 75 miles of their home. They’re not temporary workers passing through — they’re settled community members with deep roots. The Medicaid Mythology: Who’s Really on These Programs Now let’s talk about Rollins’ fantasy that 34 million Medicaid recipients are just sitting around waiting to become America’s new agricultural workforce. The cynicism here is increíble . As critics quickly pointed out, 22 million people on Medicaid are 50 and over. Are we really going to send grandmothers and grandfathers to bend over in 110-degree heat picking strawberries? The sheer physical impossibility of this plan would be laughable if it weren’t so callous. Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, a senior fellow at the American Immigration Council, linked Rollins’ statement to the recently passed budget megabill that added nationwide work requirements for many Medicaid recipients. The connection is crystal clear: strip healthcare from the poor, then force them into backbreaking labor to earn it back. It’s the kind of policy that would make Charles Dickens weep. The Historical Echo: “Down to the Countryside” The historical parallels here are chilling. NPR host Kai Rysdal compared the policy to the disastrous “Down to the Countryside “ movement carried out in China under Mao Zedong that sent educated urban students out to work as farmhands despite a total lack of experience. When your agricultural policy is drawing comparisons to failed communist experiments, maybe it’s time to reconsider. But this isn’t just bad policy — it’s the logical conclusion of an immigration system built on exploitation and a healthcare system designed to punish poverty. The same people who want to deport the experienced workers who actually know how to do this work are now planning to force sick and vulnerable Americans into the fields as a condition of receiving medical care. The Economic Reality: What Deportations Really Mean Let’s talk numbers that matter to your dinner table, compañeros . The dairy industry estimates that retail milk prices would nearly double if farmers lost their foreign-born workers. Overall, agricultural output would fall by $30 to $60 billion. This isn’t some abstract economic theory — this is what happens when you rip apart the workforce that has been sustaining American agriculture for decades. In California, immigrants make up more than 80 percent of the state’s agricultural workforce. You can’t just swap out experienced farmworkers with people who have never worked in agriculture and expect the same results. The administration’s own admission reveals the bankruptcy of their approach. Trump’s agriculture chief, Brooke Rollins, revealed that the administration has no plan to fix the damage his mass deportations are inflicting on the U.S. They’re making it up as they go along, and the solution they’ve landed on is to essentially create a conscripted workforce from the most vulnerable Americans. The Farmworker Reality: More Than Just Labor What Rollins and her colleagues don’t understand — or choose to ignore — is that farmwork isn’t just manual labor that anyone can step into. According to the National Agricultural Workers Survey (NAWS) , approximately 77% of farmworkers identify as Hispanic, and about 61% are of Mexican descent. This is skilled work that requires knowledge of crops, seasons, techniques, and stamina that comes from years of experience. Many farmworkers earn annual wages below the federal poverty level, with 21% living in poverty and median income between $20,000 and $24,999 annually. These are workers who already face substantial health challenges and experience many barriers to access care like language differences, high costs, and transportation barriers. The idea that you’re going to take people who are on Medicaid — many of whom are on it precisely because they can’t work due to disability, age, or other barriers — and turn them into an agricultural workforce is not just impractical, it’s cruel. The Intersection of Cruelty: Immigration and Healthcare What we’re witnessing here is the intersection of two systems designed to exploit and punish: immigration enforcement and healthcare rationing. The same ideology that says immigrants don’t deserve dignity or safety is now being applied to Americans who need healthcare. GOP policymakers approved sweeping and unprecedented cuts to Medicaid, arguing that Americans who lose coverage can simply get jobs that offer health insurance. But here’s the catch: farmworkers tend not to get health care coverage. So the plan is to take away people’s healthcare, force them to work in fields to earn it back, but then put them in jobs that don’t provide healthcare anyway. It’s a perfect circle of exploitation , designed to punish the poor twice — once by taking away their healthcare, and again by forcing them into work that won’t provide it back. The Voices of Resistance: What People Are Saying The response to Rollins’ comments has been swift and sharp. The response to Rollins’ comments has been swift and sharp. Bloomberg politics and policy columnist Patricia Lopez commented , “They’re like cartoon villains” , while Yahoo Finance reporter Jordan Weissmann marveled , “We’ve gone from ‘the USAID program analysts will make shoes’ to ‘people will pick strawberries to keep their healthcare’”. But beyond the rightful mockery is a deeper anger at what this represents. This isn’t just bad policy — it’s the open admission that this administration views both immigrants and poor Americans as disposable labor to be moved around like pieces on a chessboard. Our Communities, Our Resistance Escúchenme bien — this is about more than agriculture policy. This is about a worldview that sees human beings as expendable, that views our communities as problems to be solved rather than people to be valued. Whether it’s deporting the farmworkers who have been feeding us for generations or forcing sick Americans into the fields to earn healthcare, the cruelty is the point. As someone who lives in these borderlands, who sees every day how immigration and economic policies devastate real families, this latest scheme feels like a new low. But it also reveals something important: they’re desperate. They know their deportation plans are devastating the economy, and their solution is to essentially create a new form of indentured servitude. The Path Forward: Nuestra Lucha Continues But here’s what gives me hope, familia : the immediate and widespread rejection of this plan shows that people see through the BS. From policy experts to everyday Americans, people understand that this is both impractical and immoral. We need to be clear about what’s happening and what we’re fighting for. We’re fighting for an immigration system that recognizes the humanity and contribution of farmworkers. We’re fighting for a healthcare system that treats medical care as a human right, not something to be earned through labor. We’re fighting for economic policies that value workers rather than exploit them. The solution isn’t to replace one exploited workforce with another. The solution is to create systems that value all workers — immigrant and citizen, documented and undocumented, healthy and sick. We need comprehensive immigration reform that provides a path to citizenship for farmworkers who have been feeding us for decades. We need Medicare for All that ensures healthcare is a right, not a privilege. We need labor protections that ensure all agricultural workers — regardless of immigration status — are treated with dignity and paid fair wages. La lucha sigue , and it starts with rejecting the false choices this administration keeps offering us. We don’t have to choose between deportations and forced labor. We don’t have to choose between exploitation of immigrants and exploitation of Americans. We can choose justice, dignity, and an economic system that works for everyone. The heat of this Arizona summer reminds me that our ancestors survived much worse than this. They survived colonization, they survived the stealing of our lands, they survived decades of policies designed to break our communities. We’ll survive this too, and we’ll build something better in the process. Vamos a seguir luchando , because that’s what we do. We organize, we resist, and we build the world we want to see. Get 7 day free trial Keep supporting Three Sonorans Substack to stay informed about immigration, indigenous rights, and environmental justice in the borderlands. Your subscription helps us continue this important work. Leave a comment below with two questions: What do you think would be the most effective way to challenge this administration’s agricultural policies? And how can we better support both immigrant farmworkers and Americans in need of healthcare without pitting these communities against each other? 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