Journey to work

H-2A visas and wage adjustments

Before a job can be certified for the H-2A program, the U.S. Department of Labor requires employers to demonstrate that their efforts to recruit U.S. workers have been unsuccessful. Despite these restrictions, the H-2A program has grown rapidly in recent years as domestic workers find jobs outside agriculture.

Georgia is consistently one of the top five states to use the program, depending on H-2A workers for 60% of agricultural jobs. Last year, the Department of Labor passed legislation to raise the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) by a sharp 14% for several states, including Georgia.

The AEWR establishes the minimum wage for H-2A workers and serves as a benchmark to ensure their wages would not cause a downward market pressure on U.S. wages of workers in similar occupations. With the minimum wage increased to almost $14 per hour, coming on the heels of a near 10% increase in 2022, there is additional pressure on farm owners whose main cost of operation tends to be labor.

Wage increases and the bottom line

For 20-plus years, Escalante has sought to help both farm owners and the workers they employ become more successful.

The H-2A program is already an expensive program for farmers to fund, said Escalante, a fact compounded by current economic pressures and record-high input costs. The drastic wage increase puts a lot of small- to mid-scale farmers at risk of having to make significant economic sacrifices or losing their farm businesses altogether.

The crux of Escalante's work is supporting the interests of farm businesses while also valuing and fairly compensating the people doing the labor in the field.

Currently, Escalante is investigating whether increased patronage in the H-2A program and wage rates have any impact on farm businesses' bottom lines. His research will focus on fruit and vegetable farms and will estimate how profits are affected. He will also determine whether there have been any adjustments in operating strategies made to cope with increasing input costs.

Effects of immigration policy

For decades, economists have studied the impact of immigration on domestic labor markets. As a shortage of domestic farm labor has led to increased participation in the H-2A visa program, a brief look back at past immigration policies helps frame why migrants from Central and South America have largely been associated with filling necessary agricultural jobs in the U.S.

The Immigration and Nationality Act (INA) of 1952 authorized the H-2 nonimmigrant visa category - the precursor to the H-2A program - which officially permitted the recruitment of temporary foreign farmworkers to the U.S.

Fast forward to 1996, when the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act added Section 287(g) to the Immigration and Nationality Act. Often referred to simply as 287(g)s, the provision authorized U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to partner with state and local law enforcement agencies to perform immigration officer functions under the agency's direction and oversight, explained Genti Kostandini, a professor of agricultural and applied economics at CAES.

After the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, immigration policies were swiftly updated to enact even stricter enforcement of undocumented immigrants, whether or not they had committed a crime.

Following the economic downturn in 2008, that nationalistic sentiment pervaded domestic politics. In 2009, then-President George W. Bush signed an executive order requiring all federal contractors and subcontractors to use a previously voluntary program, called E-Verify, which required employers to confirm that all employees were legally registered to work in the U.S. The combination of 287(g)s and the use of E-Verify established a structure in the labor market intended to provide more economic opportunity and growth for communities, particularly for U.S. citizens.

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