USDA Head Says Medicaid Recipients Can Replace Deported Farmworkers

July 11—Speaking at a news conference at the USDA headquarters on July 9, the clueless Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said on the matter of ICE rounding up and deporting farmworkers, “There will be no amnesty…. The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way, and we move the workforce towards automation and 100% American participation…. With 34 million people, able-bodied adults on Medicaid, we should be able to do that fairly quickly.” She added that President Trump’s promise of a “100% American workforce stands.”

A report from the Urban Institute details how virtually all of those “able-bodied adults” are already working multiple jobs which have no health coverage, and the other Medicaid recipients are pregnant women, children, mothers with small children, or disabled.

A study by the University of Georgia showed that the 2011 Georgia HB 87 against immigrant labor scared off 5,200 farmworkers which resulted in crops rotting in the fields. A Georgia farmer told AP that the domestic workers in the fields “lasted about a day or two.” 

Despite Rollins statement, the White House is working with California farmers, farmworker advocates, and others on a revision of the deportation orders, Trump has said that it was not his intention to deport honest, hardworking farmworkers, and deprive farmers of the labor they need to harvest their crops. He has suggested that the farmworkers could be a given a special status that will let them stay in the country, if the farmers vouch for their workers. At this moment, with terror in the Hispanic community, less than 60% of farmworkers have been reporting to work, fearing ICE random raids. The published reports indicate that even workers who are legally in the United States are staying away from the fields.