Protestors make placards on the mall of the Oregon State Capitol in Salem just east of the Oregon Department of Consumer and Businesses Services. Hundreds of protestors lined Center Street on the far side of the mall on President’s Day Feb. 17. It was the second protest in front of the Capitol this month as demonstrators expressed opposition to the second Trump administration. Credit: Photo by Tom Henderson
Oregon’s immigrant farmworkers on contract with H-2A visas cannot quit, go on strike or take other jobs without risking immediate deportation.
They must work for a specific farmer for a specific amount of time. When that time runs out, they can work on another contract with another farmer — in the unlikely event anyone is hiring at the end of the growing season. More likely, they must leave the country.
While they’re here, the farmer controls housing and transportation — further limiting their options.
Yet the farmers are the ones complaining.
“Based on employment, not eligibility”
Farmers must pay unemployment taxes for their workers, even when those workers come from other countries and are ineligible for unemployment compensation. It’s an outrage, farmers told the Oregon Legislature. And Republican legislators responded.
Four of them, led by state Rep. Vikki Breese Iverson (R-Prineville), sponsored House Bill 3142 to exempt farmers from paying unemployment taxes when hiring workers on H-2A visas.
Yet farmers and their Republican supporters fundamentally misunderstand how unemployment compensation works, said Martha Sonato, Oregon Law Center state legislative and policy advocate.
“Unemployment insurance was created in 1935 to help people who lose their jobs through no fault of their own,” she told members of the House Committee on Labor and Workplace Standards during a public hearing on the bill Feb. 12.
“Unemployment insurance contributions are based on employment, not eligibility,” she said. “Employers pay UI taxes based on total wages paid and the number of employees, regardless of whether those employees individually qualify for benefits.”
Contributions from employers fund benefits for eligible workers across the board, Sonato added. “While H-2A workers may not typically qualify for UI benefits because of their visa restrictions that prevents them from seeking other employment in the U.S., this does not mean that employers hiring these workers should be exempt from contributing.”
“The domestic workforce is just not available”
Hiring immigrant workers is already expensive and laden with regulations, Jenny Dressler, Oregon Farm Bureau Federation director of grassroots and regulatory affairs, said.
Workers on H-2A visas must be paid $19.82 per hour in Oregon, she said during the public hearing. That reflects the “adverse effect wage rate” — designed to prevent the wages of domestic workers from being negatively affected by the hiring of H-2A workers.
Employers under the visa program are also responsible for transportation and housing, Dressler pointed out. She added that Washington, Maine and New York already exempt employers from paying unemployment taxes for H-2A workers.
“We believe this would help level the playing field in a state that is increasingly adding costs and regulations to farm employers,” Dressler said.
Oregon needs immigrant farmworkers, she told lawmakers.
When she started working for the Oregon Farm Bureau in 2014, Dressler said, there were fewer than 40 registered H-2A employers. Now, there are several hundred.
“We’ve seen an increased need due to a demand for consistent labor during the harvest period, and we’re a specialty crop state, which means we have really high labor needs for a lot of the crops we grow here in Oregon,” she told committee members.
“The reason we’ve seen a lot of increased utilization is that A, the domestic workforce is just not available during the time it’s needed, and then B, it’s a program that provides certainty that you’re going to be able to get your crop out of the ground or off the tree and get it to market while it’s still marketable,” Dressler said. “Farming is unpredictable. We’re always looking for certainty.”
“Employers have a high level of control”
Even President Donald Trump appears to appreciate that certainty. He has harsh words for immigrant labor, but he has kinder words for the H-2A visa program — calling it a “source of legal and verified labor for agriculture” in 2018 during his first term.
Project 2025, the conservative Heritage Foundation’s blueprint for the second Trump administration, calls for the elimination of the visa program. While Trump embraced much of Project 2025’s agenda during his 2024 campaign, he continued to support H-2A visas.
He employs workers on the visas himself at his vineyard in Charlottesville, Virginia. Like the president, Oregon farmers couldn’t ask for a more stable workforce. Workers have few choices during the life of the contract.
“Employers have a high level of control over temporary foreign workers under the current program, and enforcement resources and mechanisms are minimal — inviting widespread violations of H-2A regulations and other workplace protections,” testified Ira Cuello-Martinez, Woodburn-based farmworkers union PCUN’s climate policy associate.
“Not just isolated bad actors”
Investigators at the U.S. Department of Labor found 84% of H-2A employers failed to provide workers with adequate pay, transportation, housing or other services from 2018 to 2023. Almost half the violations (42%) related to pay.
“This reflects the systemic issues within the H-2A program, not just isolated bad actors,” Sonato told committee members.
Excusing farmers from paying unemployment taxes for all of their workers only invites further abuse, she said.
“The proposal rewards reliance on an inherently flawed H-2A system, which is long overdue for reform,” Sonato testified. “The H-2A system has a history of failing both foreign agricultural workers and domestic agricultural workers by perpetrating unsafe working conditions, wage violations and worker exploitation.”
Beth Lemen expresses her views on immigration while joining hundreds of others protesting outside the Oregon State Capitol on Presidents’ Day Feb. 17. This is the second time protestors have lined Center Street on the far side of the Capitol mall this month.
She added she doesn’t buy the argument that farmers only turn to immigrant workers on H-2A visas when domestic workers are unavailable.
“This is, in theory, what should be happening,” she said. “In practice, from our work experience, it has been very different from that. What we often see is failing to adequately recruit local workers — for example, putting in the job posting unrealistic productivity quotas to essentially discourage U.S. applicants or scheduling inconvenient interviews or inconsistent hours to drive local workers away.”
Adverse effect wage rates fluctuate year to year, Dressler told the committee, as do housing and transportation costs. Just the cost of overseeing people on visas is formidable, she said. Few small farms have professional human resources services.
“The cost barriers are already very, very high,” she said. “I don’t see that it provides a disincentive whatsoever to hiring domestic workers.”
“… will further exploit vulnerable workers”
Lindsi Leahy, Oregon Employment Department unemployment insurance division director, told committee members that losing the taxes paid for H-2A workers would cost the overall pot of money for unemployment insurance approximately $2.2 million during the 2025-2027 biennium.
That loss would go up to $2.7 million during the subsequent biennium.
Service Employees International Union Local 503 members joined farmworker advocates in opposing the legislation.
Union President Mike Powers said farmers rarely provide proof there’s a shortage of domestic workers. “This requirement is often poorly enforced,” Powers told committee members. “As a result, some employers prioritize hiring H-2A workers over local workers, undermining wages and job opportunities for workers here in Oregon.”
He also pointed out the conditions faced by workers. “H-2A workers rely entirely on their sponsoring employers for wages, housing and employment conditions,” he said. “Many face substandard working conditions, including inadequate housing and low pay — and with limited resources due to their visa-dependent status.”
Rather than exempting farmers from paying unemployment insurance, Powers said his union supports training agricultural workers where they live, ensuring they have the skills they need for long-term employment. The union also supports local clinics and educational programs that directly benefit the farmworker community.
“This bill will further exploit vulnerable workers and penalize local employers who do right by their employees,” he told lawmakers. “Explore policies that truly support Oregon’s agricultural industry and our farm families.”
“Threats about removing the visa”
Cuello-Martinez said the entire system is practically geared for abuse.
“Dependency on a single employer creates a vulnerable workforce and opportunities for exploitation — including labor trafficking,” he told the committee. “In some cases, there are abuses of illegal recruitment fees, recruitment fraud, unsanitary housing conditions and even immigration threats. If folks speak up when there’s a labor violation taking place, there have been threats about removing the visa and having the foreign worker deported.”
Roxana Macias, Worker and Farm Labor Association chief people and community officer, told committee members her organization supports the bill. “We support the bill out of fundamental fairness,” Macias said. “Unemployment insurance premiums are being paid on behalf of workers who cannot receive the benefits those premiums pay for.”
While workers with H-2A visas are not free to leave without facing serious consequences, farmers can still lay them off. However, Macias said she sees little danger of that. “Employers are calling out their period of need, so the time that H-2A are employed during usually their peak season,” she said. “The possibility of a worker being temporarily laid off during a peak season is pretty slim.”
She added she’s been working with H-2A visas for 13 years. “I’ve never seen a case where someone is laid off for four weeks under an H-2A contract unless there’s an act of God,” Macias said.
Kate Suisman, Northwest Workers Justice Project attorney and campaigns coordinator, told the committee that more than the rights of farmworkers are at stake.
“It’s not just for ag workers,” she said. “I’m thinking of this as a kind of slippery slope. If these employers who are bringing in foreign workers don’t have to pay unemployment insurance, maybe the high-tech sector is going to ask for that or hospitality or manufacturing or any of the other sectors in Oregon that use foreign visa workers.”
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