For Mexican Workers, Temporary Farmwork Visas Facilitate Abuse and Exploitation

It took more than 12 hours for Isabella to travel across her native Mexico from the coastal community she called home to the consulate in Monterrey, an industrial epicenter in the northeastern state of Nuevo León. Like millions of Mexican workers who came before her, Isabella’s consulate visit in 2020 was the final hurdle before the U.S. government granted what felt like a small miracle: a coveted H-2A visa that allows workers, the vast majority of whom are from Mexico, to traverse the border for lawful employment in the U.S. as seasonal agricultural workers. Prior to President Donald Trump’s second term, American employers could request workers from 86 eligible countries as part of the H-2A Temporary Agricultural Program. However, from 2018 to 2023, 92% of workers were from Mexico , whe