By Isabella Torregiani
11:28am PDT, Jul 14, 2025
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Agriculture Secretary
Brooke Rollins hinted at a solution to the nation's farm labor shortage — suggesting that deported migrant workers could be replaced by "able-bodied" Medicaid recipients. President
Donald Trump also emphasized that any final decisions should be left to the farmers themselves. If a farmer is willing to vouch for a longtime worker, he said, that worker may be allowed to stay.
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While meeting with his cabinet recently, President Donald Trump made his position clear: his new plan to support the agriculture industry will not include amnesty. "What we're doing is we're getting rid of criminals, but we are doing a work program," he said. "We got to give the farmers the people they need, but we're not talking amnesty." Brooke Rollins elaborated that the administration's workforce plan will aim to transition the farming industry toward greater automation and a domestic labor pool. "No amnesty," she said. "Mass deportation continues, but in a strategic way."
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Brooke Rollins previously floated the idea that new Medicaid work requirements could help farmers replace undocumented laborers. "There's been a lot of noise in the last few days and a lot of questions about where President Donald Trump stands and his vision for farm labor," Rollins
said during a press conference. "Ultimately, the answer on this is automation, also some reform within the current governing structure, and then also, when you think about there are 34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program. There are plenty of workers in America."
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As part of President Donald Trump's "One Big, Beautiful Bill," a provision will require able-bodied, childless adults between ages 18 and 64 to work a minimum of 80 hours a month to remain eligible for Medicaid. Trump revealed a proposal that will allow farmers to vouch for longtime migrant workers facing deportation. "You know, they've had people working for them for years. And we're going to do something. … We're going to sort of put the farmers in charge," Trump recently told his supporters in Iowa. "If a farmer has been with one of these people that worked so hard – they bend over all day, we don't have too many people that can do that, but they work very hard, and they know him very well, and some of the farmers are literally, you know, they cry when they see this happen – if a farmer is willing to vouch for these people, in some way… I think we're going to have to just say that's going to be good, right?"
