From the moment Biden displayed a bronze bust of socialist labor icon Cesar Chavez on his desk in the Oval Office, it was clear that union bosses would be running Biden’s economic agenda even before “Bidenomics” became a word. As Biden commits to Chavez’s legacy of putting the interests of labor unions over actual workers, it’s not just the U.S. economy taking a hit—but also the security at our southern border.
Earlier this year, Biden enacted a regulation that will discourage as much as 65 percent of farmers from using the H-2A visa program, the only existing legal avenue for hiring agricultural workers from abroad. Under the new regulation, farmers need to record every single task their employees do to prove to the government that they aren’t exploiting their employees. Some small farmers have reported that this regulation will cost them over $100,000 in a single season because they’ll need to triple their paperwork, pay thousands in additional fees, and revamp their HR and accounting systems. (RELATED: JENNY BETH MARTIN: Biden’s Border ‘Emergency’ Funding Won’t Fix The Border At All)
Shutting famers out of the H-2A program will only cause more migrants to rush the southern border as the administration deprives them of opportunities to come legally and work. This was exactly what happened when Cesar Chavez successfully convinced lawmakers to end the Bracero program—the H-2A visa’s predecessor—in 1964.
In a similar manner to how employers utilize the H-2A visa today, farmers in the 1950s and 60s needed the Bracero program to fill gaps in their workforce. Although Border Patrol warned that terminating the Bracero program would trigger a border surge, Chavez pushed to end it anyway because employers’ ability to hire additional workers complicated his efforts to organize strikes. Immediately after the Bracero program’s termination, illegal immigration skyrocketed—and border arrests surged by one thousand percent in the 12 years that followed.
Today, the H-2A program is already heavily regulated, and farmers who use it are required to pay their workers above the average wage that Americans working in the same job and location make. The compensation requirements are so high, in fact, that U.S. agricultural workers have sued their employers because their H-2A colleagues were being paid more than them. Overall, the program requires farmers to abide by nearly 200 rules total—many of which are so complex and minute that even different government agencies disagree on how to appropriately interpret and enforce them. These regulations are so costly, that a farmer pays over $10,000 to bring over just one H-2A worker, according to a 2021 State Department analysis. (RELATED: ALFREDO ORTIZ: Bidenomics Is Pouring Cold Water On The Labor Market)
Instead of making the H-2A program even more confusing and expensive for farmers to access, Biden needs to streamline the program and reverse the costly labyrinth of regulations that were never required from Congress. Cleaning out this bureaucratic clutter won’t just help America’s farmers, it’ll also allow the Labor Department to refocus its resources toward combatting the rare cases of actual abuse from employers—rather than wasting efforts policing accidental infractions.
With record high crossings at the southern border, Biden is asking billions from Congress in a desperate attempt to get the crisis under the control. But so long as he’s committed to following in Chavez’s footsteps, such security investments will remain in vain.
Sam Peak is a senior policy analyst at Americans for Prosperity.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Daily Caller News Foundation.
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