How to Push Food Prices Even Higher

For years, immigrants have helped keep food abundant and affordable by moving to areas where farmers need help. But with the loss of two million working-age immigrants owing to pandemic restrictions on visa processing, the entire food industry faces more job vacancies than any other sector. And although a recent Texas A&M report found that increasing the number of immigrant farm workers can reduce food prices and raise wages, the Biden administration is poised to add hurdles to the H-2A program, the visa that American farmers rely on when they can’t find enough workers.

In a soon-to-be-enacted rule, the Labor Department will require U.S. farmers to jump through more hoops that could add roughly seven months to the H-2A application process. Farmers would need to file additional paperwork, despite already having to undergo 70 separate application steps and abide by more than 200 rules. According to the State Department, H-2A paperwork already costs a farmer more than $10,000 to bring over one agricultural worker—even if that worker was previously hired by the same employer.

The Labor Department says it is protecting the wages of U.S. farmworkers. But employers are already required to pay H-2A workers above the median wage for their profession, according to the Cato Institute. The program also requires farmers to submit a job opening to their State Workforce Agency 60 days before the job begins so that unemployed Americans can apply. The farmer must also notify his current and previous employees about the opportunity. Even after hiring a foreign worker, the employer is required to interview and hire willing U.S. applicants for the position until the foreign worker’s contract is halfway completed.

Rather than protecting Americans, the proposed H-2A rule will create barriers that harm U.S. and foreign workers alike. As many as 75% of U.S. agricultural workers lack legal status, while only 10% are working under the H-2A program. The regulatory burdens have led to a black market of illegal immigration in the agricultural sector, undermining U.S. working conditions and border security.

In May, Labor Secretary

Marty Walsh

told lawmakers that he didn’t support expanding H-2A visas because they’re “not real immigration reform.”

If President Biden hopes to reduce inflation and restore accountability to our immigration system, he should reverse the Labor Department’s H-2A rule and support the passage of the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, currently being negotiated in the Senate. Passage would eliminate administrative redundancies by allowing farmers to send their paperwork to all the relevant agencies through a single platform. The bill also would let farmers hire H-2A workers with multiple start dates and create opportunities for year-round industries such as dairy and pork. These reforms would be combined with a one-time opportunity for unauthorized workers to get right with the law if they have worked in agriculture for at least 180 days of the past two years and pass a criminal background check, pay a $1,000 penalty, and submit their biometric information to the government.

Amid soaring food prices and border crossings, both parties should treat immigration as an opportunity to be harnessed rather than a problem to be managed.

Mr. Peak is an immigration policy analyst at Americans for Prosperity.