Immigration and the Dairy Industry

The Trump administration has made immigration a key focus with enforcement efforts tied closely to campaign promises on immigration and inflation. Chris Galen, senior vice president of membership services and strategic initiatives with the National Milk Producers Federation shares his perspective on how these policies could impact the ag industry.

“Our message continues to be that we know that there are undocumented workers throughout the economy, and if they were to suddenly disappear, that would cause food shortages in the food system in other aspects of the economy, as well as long-term challenges as well. So I think President Trump, at a recent cabinet meeting, acknowledged the fact that we need to have some mechanism to have foreign born workers come in and work legally, but to do jobs that it's very difficult to get Americans to do. That affects dairy, it affects the meat packing industry, it affects horticulture further down the food chain, it affects folks who work in hotels and restaurants. So that's that's it's an ongoing issue. You know, obviously the deportations haven't been at the pace that a lot of people expected here at the beginning of the year. So we'll see how that changes this summer.”

Once again. Chris Galen is, senior vice president of membership services and strategic initiatives with the National Milk Producers Federation.