American farmers are bracing for a shortage of seasonal workers following the State Department’s suspension of routine immigrant and nonimmigrant visa processing in Mexico, including for temporary migrant laborers, beginning Wednesday.
The delay in visa processing for farmworkers comes just as harvest season begins in Florida. Companies responsible for feeding the country are already expecting fewer available workers to manufacture, deliver and unpack groceries as the coronavirus pandemic intensifies.
The seafood industry, including fisheries and crab-picking in Maryland, whose hiring season starts in April, will also be affected by the U.S. government’s decision.
One of the most important things we need to do is to make sure that our supply chains for food stay in place, and guest workers are a big part of what drives that engine, said Sarah Frey, founder and chief executive of Frey Farms, which operates in Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and West Virginia. We have to figure out ways to keep going. Right now, feeding people is an essential service.
Seafood companies have Mexican migrant workers scheduled to cross the border over the next two weeks who may no longer be processed, industry representatives say.
It’s going to be devastating to the Virginia commercial seafood industry if these crab pickers, bait packers and fish packers don’t get help, said Mike Hutt, executive director of the Virginia Marine Products Board, which represents the state’s seafood industry. The timing can’t be any worse. It’s possible that for some of these people, if they don’t get their workers, they could go out of business.
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