When President Trump campaigned for his second term on the promise of deporting millions of undocumented workers from the United States, farm groups were quick to voice their discontent. An immigration policy focused solely on removing those without legal status “would cripple agricultural production in America,” according to the American Farm Bureau Federation, a powerful agricultural lobbying group.

Economists, labor organizers, and immigrant rights advocates agreed. About 40 percent of farmworkers in the country are foreign-born, unauthorized workers, the U.S. Department of Agriculture recently found. Some farmers already complain that it’s hard enough to fill agricultural jobs domestically; without foreign labor, they argue, the nation’s food system would grind to a halt.

Now,

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