Deep-red Idaho just realized Trump’s immigration policy is lethal for its $20 billion dairy industry

Under the second Trump administration, the United States has seen mass deportations and a sharp escalation in immigration enforcement. The Department of Homeland Security says the crackdown pushed nearly 3 million people out of the country in Trump’s first year back in office.

For the first time since the 1960s, the number of immigrants living in the U.S. is declining; because most farmworkers are foreign born, those losses are already beginning to strain American farms.

We are social scientists who study immigrant communities in Idaho and the challenges farmworkers face. We also run an annual survey exploring public opinion on a range of policy issues, including immigration and economic conditions. Amid the government’s heated rhetoric, our data shows public opinion on immigration in one of the country’s reddest agricultural states is diverging from national politics and may even be at odds with federal policy.

Immigrant labor in agriculture

According to the Center for Migration Studies, 86% of farmworkers in the U.S. are foreign born, and 45% are undocumented. In 2025 the Trump administration suggested it would not target farms. Still, farmworkers across the country are scared to go to work.

Between March and July 2025, the agricultural workforce declined by 7%, with farms reporting labor shortages in states that voted for........

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