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The new Presidential administration has promised vigorous enforcement of existing immigration laws, potentially targeting all unauthorized immigrants rather than prioritizing those who have committed crimes outside of illegal entry. There has been some discussion around the effects of mass deportation on certain sectors including construction, meat-packing, and agriculture. Due to the nature of the population in question generally seeking to evade officials, firm numbers are often difficult to come by. However, there is one notable sector where we do have some reliable data. The Department of Labor’s National Agricultural Worker Survey (NAWS) has been collecting work authorization information for over twenty years, allowing research into the composition of the agricultural labor force. These surveys show that certain labor-intensive subsectors and regions of agriculture are more exposed to unauthorized and immigrant labor forces than others. 

 

Fruits, Nuts, and Vegetables Particularly Exposed

 

In the 2021-22 survey waves, NAWS data show that over half of workers employed by fruit and nut farms are not authorized to work in the United States. More than three in four workers in this subsector are non-citizens, who are vulnerable to changes in visa policy or processing times and where the Executive has wide policy latitude. Vegetable and horticulture producers are less exposed to unauthorized laborers, but still have workforces that are about 43% and 36% working illegally, respectively. Field crops, such as wheat, corn, and soy, are much less labor intensive than the other major categories of crop surveyed, and have much lower exposure to non-citizen labor; only about one in five field crop laborers are non-citizens.

Figure 1: Work Status by Crop, 2021-22.

Source: Author's calculations using the Dept. of Labor’s NAWS, 2021-22 survey waves.

Note:  Bars will not total to one due to exclusion of non-responses and the miscellaneous/multiple category.

 

West Coast has majority of Unauthorized Workers

 

The majority of laborers not authorized to work in the U.S. are in California and the Northwest. Californian agriculture is highly exposed to immigrant labor. More than 80% of workers in California are non-citizens. California also represents the largest share of all regional agricultural employment. When combined, 87% of workers are unauthorized on the West Coast (California and the Northwest.) The Midwest is the least exposed region to immigrant labor, as only one in five workers are non-citizens.  

 

Figure 2: Work Status by Region.

Source: Author's calculations using the Dept. of Labor’s NAWS, 2021-22 survey waves.

Note: Bars will not total to one due to exclusion of non-responses.

 

According to NAWS data, California has seen an increasing share of agricultural laborers over time while Midwest labor share has declined since 2011. This may be driven by trends towards labor intensive crops which tend to be grown in California such as Fruits & Nuts. Meanwhile, increasing automation in row crops such as soy, wheat, and corn may have decreased labor demand in these crop types, which are predominantly grown in the Midwest.

 

Figure 3: Proportion of Agricultural workers over time.

Source: Author's calculations using the Dept. of Labor’s NAWS.

Note: Regions as defined by the NAWS. See Figure 4 below.

 

Figure 4: NAWS Regions.

Source: U.S. Department of Labor, NAWS, courtesy of Daniel J. Carroll.

 

Citizens increasingly likely to be in Agriculture

 

Since the 1999-2000 wave, citizens make up an increasing share of the agricultural workforce. Unauthorized labor share has been trending down since the early 2000s while other non-citizen workers have remained relatively steady.The share of foreign-born workers has also been trending down, mirroring the authorization status share. In the 2021-22 wave, U.S.-born workers made up the highest share of agricultural workers observed since the 1990s.

 

Figure 5: Current Work Authorization Status over Time. 

Source: Author's calculations using the Dept. of Labor’s NAWS.

Note: Years are aggregated survey responses from two consecutive survey waves, starting in 1999 through 2022.

 

Figure 6: Foreign born population over Time.

Source: Author's calculations using the Dept. of Labor’s NAWS.

Note: Years are aggregated survey responses from two consecutive survey waves, starting in 1999 through 2022.

 

However, the share of unauthorized workers with one or more children who are U.S. citizens has remained at relatively high levels since the mid-2000s. In the 2021-22 wave, about one in five unauthorized workers was in a mixed-status family. This especially complicates presidential promises of mass deportation without family separation.

 

Figure 6: Mixed Family Authorization Status over Time. 

Source: Author's calculations using the Dept. of Labor’s NAWS.

Note: Mixed Family refers to a farmworker who is not authorized to work in the U.S. but has children who are U.S. citizens.

 

The new administration has made certain promises towards mass deportation of non-criminal unauthorized workers. While citizens account for an increasing share of agricultural laborers, given the extent of unauthorized workers in sectors like fruits, nuts, and vegetables it is likely that mass deportation would contribute to much higher labor costs for these producers, lower U.S. competitiveness on the world market, and raise prices of staples at the grocery for American consumers.  

 

 

 

 

 

 Notes & Sources:

 

Many thanks to Daniel Carroll of the U.S. Department of Labor for his helpful comments and map. Any errors in this article are my own. Figures were produced using Python and Matplotlib.

 

Following the recommendation of the survey authors, results are reported using two-year consecutive waves. Authors report a very high response rate of 92%, to which they attribute the $20 honorarium for survey participation in the 2021-22 waves. Authorization status was recoded to unauthorized if the respondent did not answer the authorization question, was not born in the U.S., and responded to the interviewer in Spanish. This is somewhat similar to assumption used to generate population estimates using the ‘residual’ methodology  by the Office of Homeland Security Statistics and the Pew Research Center. However, the response rate of unauthorized population is significantly higher in NAWS and the Census does not collect information on authorization status. These respondents account for 0.33% of the 2021-22 survey wave. Additionally, respondents who did not respond to the authorization status question but answered that they were born in the U.S. and responded in English were classified as citizens. There were no respondents who did so in the 2021-22 survey wave. Due to the suppression of sampling sub-units, it’s not possible to compute mean standard errors for cross-tabs with publicly available data. Hopefully, a forthcoming article using the restricted access data should have these figures.

 

Title Picture courtesy of Wikimedia; By Frank Schulenburg - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0.