The time of agriculture working on its own to solve the labor crisis is over, says Manuel Cunha, president of the Nisei Farmers League. Foodservice, hospitality, construction and more all have common interests in finding a way to ensure a viable workforce in the future.
“You can’t be one-sided anymore,” he says. “It’s not going to work.”
Cunha says the Dignity Act, which has been introduced by Reps. María Elvira Salazar, R-Fla., and Veronica Escobar, D-Texas, shows promise. While a Farmworker Modernization Act could help improve the ag labor situation, it does not address the residual effects of unauthorized workers. Many ag workers have families that work in restaurants or construction, some unauthorized ag workers seek other employment during the offseason.
“When our season stops, they probably go over to construction or they probably go to manufacturing or they probably go into a hotel,” he says. “There’s a lot of crossover, back and forth.”
About the Dignity Act
The Dignity Act of 2025 calls for a seven-year temporary legal status for undocumented immigrants that have been in the U.S. for more than five years.
Those immigrants must pass a criminal background check and pay $7,000 in restitution over seven years, and they would not be eligible for federal benefits or entitlements and would not earn a path to citizenship. Once they complete the Dignity Program, the undocumented workers could continue to stay and work in the U.S.
“Dignity is not amnesty. Dignity does not grant a path to citizenship to anybody. Dignity is the Solomonic way to fix a 40-year problem,” Salazar said at a press conference.
The Dignity Act also calls for nationwide mandatory E-Verify, would increase penalties for illegal border crossing and would require DNA testing for family verification.
Restitution paid by the undocumented workers would fund this program.
“If you are undocumented and you have been in the country for more than five years, you do not have a criminal record, you’re working and paying taxes, you can come out of the shadows with no fear and apply for the Dignity status,” Salazar says.
What Workers Want
Cunha says most workers are unfamiliar with the Dignity Act, and that’s why he and the Nisei Farmers League have begun a media blitz on Telemundo to help workers understand this legislation.
Most importantly, the unauthorized workers he talked to want some sort of documentation.
“The first thing out of these workers’ mouths was: ‘We just want a legal card so we can travel, and we don’t have to be scared about going to work every day,’” he says. “A legal card, something legal to work.”
Cunha says in discussions with unauthorized workers, most are concerned about what happens to their family. He says workers tell him: “I can’t leave. I don’t have a place in Mexico. My place is here. I live here. My cousins are here. My parents are here.”
Cunha says that, whatever happens, workers need to complete the process in the U.S. and not leave, apply at a consulate and come back. The risks are too high to have undocumented workers leave, he says.
“That makes a tremendous amount of sense, because if you go back to that country, what type of extortion will go on in those countries?” Cunha says. “Or people trying to get to a consulate or whatever, it just will be the biggest disaster, and our industries will suffer, because there will be no workers here to work in our industry.”
He says workers he’s talked to are still uncertain about what will happen in the future.
“The workers told us that they’re still scared,” he says. “They’re still scared because of the uncertainty and what they hear.”
Imperfect, But a Start
Cunha is optimistic that the Dignity Act, coupled with the Farmworker Modernization Act, can help bring relief to an overburdened industry.
“The Farmworker Modernization Act cannot be the only thing that tries to make it through the House out to the Senate and to the president, because I think the president has made clear many times, many times, ‘I want to take care of the ag, hotels, the restaurants, the municipalities,’” he says.
Cunha says the administration has also discussed other policies that could also help growers, and he sees the administration taking a more holistic approach to the need for labor.
“I think and I believe he wants a comprehensive direction,” he says.
And Cunha says agriculture can’t go at this alone. While ag workers are highly skilled at more intricate tasks of pruning, grafting and more, it’s unlikely other domestic labor sources would produce the same results.
“You have to have that hand-labor, but the hand-labor we have here in California is very educated, very sharp, very talented and knows the industry,” he says. “It just takes a tremendous amount of different talents and skills that many of the foreign workers have as compared to here.”
Cunha says other industries have a common interest in securing the workforce to fuel the country as well as ensure production doesn’t move offshore. Growers have a keen interest in working with foodservice as restaurants buy the produce grown.
“I need restaurants to be alive,” Cunha says of a grower perspective. “I sell food to restaurants. If I damage restaurants, I damage the sales in our own country.”
While Cunha says the Dignity Act isn’t perfect, it’s a step in the right direction.
“I think we’ve either got to come together and make this happen or we’re just going to destroy each other,” he says. “And the foreign countries are the ones that are going to, at the end of the day, be where we buy our food from.”
Your next read in this series:
- What Does the Future Hold for Labor in an Ag Tech World?
- Will Autonomous Harvest Reach the Goal Line?
- What You Need to Know About the DOL’s New H-2A Updates
- Farmworkers Say Their Role Is Essential ‘All the Time’
- ‘Crisis’ Point: Urgency Builds for Immigration Reform in Agriculture
- Overtime laws make it almost impossible to farm, growers say
- Growers say the current state of H-2A is untenable
- Much work remains to solve ag labor issues
