Despite some labor-related wins early in the year, the threat of raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on farming operations had chilling effects on labor in the fresh produce industry in 2025.
Given that President Donald Trump said that the raids “haven’t gone far enough” in an early-November 60 Minutes interview, it is quite possible they will continue in the future.
The raids kicked off in earnest in early summer, hitting right in the heart of fresh produce’s biggest season. On June 11, The Packer’s Christina Herrick reported on the fallout of an ICE raid in Oxnard, Calif., the day before. The Farm Bureau of Ventura County called ICE’s actions “an unacceptable escalation,” describing agents as having tried to enter a local packing facility without a judicial warrant and having targeted locations and routes frequented by agriculture workers.
“Let us be unequivocal: racial profiling is illegal; intimidation is not enforcement,” the organization said. “Using fear to destabilize the workforce that powers our farms is a reckless and short-sighted tactic with far-reaching consequences.”
A few days later, in the wake of Trump’s mixed messaging on ICE raids, The Packer’s Jennifer Strailey sat down with Kevin Kelly. Kelly is the CEO of Emerald Packaging, the largest flexible packaging supplier to the leafy greens industry. Strailey had questions about the impact of the raids and the uncertainty around them from the front lines.
“I think a lot of folks are feeling uncertain and afraid,” Kelly said, noting rumors are sometimes as good as reality when it came to ICE raids’ chilling effect. “We’ve certainly heard that folks aren’t turning up to work in the fields, and we’ve seen it in our facility.”
The uncertainty persisted in June, and just a few days later, Joe Del Bosque, CEO of Del Bosque Farms in California, talked to Michelle Rook of “AgriTalk” radio.
“There’s so much uncertainty as to what the administration is going to do,” he said. “One day they say they’re going to help the farmers … and then the next day they come out and say, ‘we’re going to deport them all.’”
The flip-flopping made farmworkers and farmers alike nervous, even though there had been few actual ICE raids of agricultural operations up to that point. Del Bosque talked about what it would take to make everyone feel safe to come to work again.
The Packer will continue to cover ICE raids and other impacts to farm labor as it happens. You can find that and related coverage here.
