What’s at stake?
Sen. Schiff’s visit to California’s agricultural heartland comes after back-and-forth from the Trump administration on whether to spare farms from immigration enforcement activity.
U.S. Sen. Adam Schiff denounced several of the Trump administration’s recent immigration enforcement tactics in the Central Valley and across California — including chasing a farmworker through the fields and making arrests in plainclothes.
“We need to make sure that we acknowledge who’s putting food on our table, and how hard the work is,” Schiff told reporters in a visit to Del Bosque Farms in Firebaugh Thursday. “We shouldn’t be chasing them through the fields with immigration raids.”
The California senator met privately with a group of farmers and two Fresno County mayors during his visit to Joe Del Bosque’s farm Thursday. The group talked of both “perennial” concerns like the water supply, Schiff said, as well as workforce concerns under the second Trump administration.
“The administration said they were going to focus on people who are violent criminals. Fine, focus on people who are violent criminals,” he said. “But don’t separate children from their parents, when their parents are working hard every day to put food on our table.”
Schiff’s visit comes after back-and-forth from the Trump administration on whether to spare the agricultural industry from immigration raids. The flip-flopping — which reversed initial guidance not to conduct raids on farms — left some farmers dismayed, as they depend on a largely immigrant workforce to keep California’s $60-billion agriculture industry booming.
Joe Del Bosque, owner of the west Fresno County farm that primarily grows melons and almonds, said that while the recent raids haven’t targeted the Central Valley to the same extent they have other parts of the state, he’s still seen workforce impacts.
This year, a crew of about 20 farmworkers that used to come in from Arizona for seasonal work on Del Bosque’s farm hasn’t shown up, and he suspects it’s for fear of encountering immigration authorities en route.
“They haven’t said why,” Del Bosque said, “but I believe they haven’t gotten on the road because they’re afraid to go on the road. They’re afraid of road checks.”
In the absence of any short-term relief from the Trump administration, some central San Joaquin Valley farmers are keeping their sights set on Congress for comprehensive immigration policy reforms, like the Farm Workforce Modernization Act, which Schiff voiced support for Thursday.
The bill creates a path to legal status for agricultural workers as well as their spouses and minor children, and has received support from both industry groups and the United Farm Workers.
It has passed through the U.S. House of Representatives twice in its previous iterations, but has yet to make it through the Senate.
“We had good bipartisan support to get it passed in the House. What are the obstacles to getting it done in the Senate?” said Schiff, who served in the House of Representatives before being elected to the Senate in 2024. “I intend to really dig into that and see how we can get that bill to the finish line.”
Del Bosque said that while the bill is a “good start,” he hopes to see changes made to so-called “touchback” provisions limiting agricultural guest workers’ visas and requiring them to periodically return to their home countries.
Those provisions drew the ire of some industry groups in the bill’s previous versions.
“We can’t afford for them to go even for a few days, and it could be weeks or longer,” Del Bosque said. “They work here, and they have families here, and it would be devastating to make them go back for any extended time.”
What else did the senator discuss?
Schiff is the first California senator to serve on the Senate Agriculture Committee in over 30 years.
He said he hopes that helps increase the piece of the pie that California and “specialty crop growers” elsewhere get from that committee going forward.
“The resources of that committee tend to go to the commodity row crop growers in the Midwest,” he said, “and a lot less held for farmers elsewhere. I want to make sure there’s more fairness when it comes to the division of agricultural resources.”
When asked about some of the other recent trends in immigration enforcement activity, including officers dressing in plainclothes and using unmarked cars while making arrests, Schiff said it’s “a terrible and a dangerous practice.”
“All of our law enforcement agents need to protect themselves and be safe, and violence against law enforcement is never, never acceptable. But there are lots of law enforcement that do really dangerous work everyday, in their uniform, with their badge,” he said, “and I think that’s the way it has to be.”
