A new Republican-backed bill that would grant amnesty to illegal immigrant agricultural workers is facing an onslaught of criticism from immigration hawks.
House Agriculture Committee Chair Glenn “GT” Thompson (R-PA) recently introduced the Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act to provide illegal immigrant farmworkers with a path to temporary legal status.
Gregory Bovino, who led the Trump administration’s aggressive deportation sweeps in Minneapolis and other major cities before his recent retirement from Border Patrol, said the Republican lawmakers backing the bill “just stabbed Trump’s deportation promise in the back.”
“They’re only gonna get the message one way. Vote every single one of them out in a massive wave, and replace them with real immigration hawks. Anything less, and they’ll never take us seriously,” Bovino wrote on X Tuesday.
Trump tells me he doesn’t know about Securing Agriculture’s Workforce Act of 2026, a bill that would allow illegals in farming, meat packing and lodging industries to gain legal status.
He says he will look into it. pic.twitter.com/VJNiIujIhy
— Reagan Reese (@reaganreese_) July 21, 2026
When asked about the bill Tuesday, President Donald Trump said he “didn’t know about it,” but would “take a look at it.”
I will fight AGAINST any amnesty proposal in Congress.
Illegal aliens BROKE our laws, and they MUST go home.
AMNESTY is betraying the trust of the American people. pic.twitter.com/aJJwwD4h6U
— Rep. Andy Ogles (@RepOgles) July 22, 2026
In a recent Newsmax appearance, Rep. Andy Ogles (R-TN) came out in opposition to the bill, saying it provides illegal immigrants with a “pathway to citizenship” without offering “comprehensive reform.”
“So we have a lot of work to do on immigration. Look, we know the immigration system is broken, that’s why I carry most of the legislation on immigration, fixing immigration. But as we have this conversation, there can be no amnesty as part of that conversation,” Ogles said.
“Look, if you want to get a work visa, that’s one thing, but you also have to understand that if you want to become a citizen, you need to go back to your country, and you need to apply the right way and you need to stand in line like everyone else,” he added.
Jeremy Beck, co-President of NumbersUSA, told Newsweek that the bill is “an amnesty for employers engaged in illegal hiring,” adding that “It allows hundreds of thousands of illegal workers to stay as long as they indenture themselves to the agricultural industry.”
“Then the bill lowers workers’ wages and deducts the cost of housing from their paychecks,” Beck said.
“No amnesty!” Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said in response to the bill. “Amnesty is NOT what people voted for in 2024!”
No amnesty. https://t.co/rgghloBMux pic.twitter.com/wHEjV8s3fu
— House Freedom Caucus (@freedomcaucus) July 20, 2026
The bill would meet the demands of farm industry giants, including by allowing farms to employ H-2A migrant farmworkers for year-round labor, according to Politico.
“[The bill] does acknowledge that dairy farmers have never had a workable ag-labor visa program, and it provides a short-term mechanism that will avoid massive disruptions to its workforce, which would in turn devastate family farms, create supply chain disruptions, and increase consumer costs,” Gregg Doud, president and CEO of the National Milk Producers Federation, said in a statement.
John Hollay, president and CEO of the National Council of Agricultural Employers, said the bill “follows through on President Trump’s promise from last Spring to protect American agriculture and seeks to codify a system that will ensure all of agriculture has access to a legal workforce when Americans won’t do the job,” according to Politico.
Thompson argues that the bill is needed to address a years-long farm “labor crisis.”
“They can’t get the help they need to harvest their crops and astronomical labor costs have pushed many lifelong farmers to the brink of bankruptcy,” Thompson said.
“This is happening because the very program that once kept farmers in business is sinking under the weight of bureaucratic costs. Without reform, the H-2A visa program may now be the reason these same farms cannot be passed on to the next generation,” he said.
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