Despite strong and bipartisan House support for farm labor reform, President Trump is unlikely to sign a reform bill, now stalled in the Senate, if it reaches him, said Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue on Wednesday. Some high-level White House officials oppose the bill for offering a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants who work on farms and ranches.
“The House passed a bill that I don’t think, pretty sure, the president feels like he could sign,” Perdue told the National Association of State Departments of Agriculture. “He hasn’t made a statement on it,” said Perdue, but “I know some principals in there [the White House]” oppose the bill.
Perdue spoke on the same day that several agricultural groups and lawmakers urged the Senate to act on the farm labor bill sponsored by Reps. Zoe Lofgren, a California Democrat, and Dan Newhouse, a Washington State Republican. The bill would give legal status to undocumented farmworkers and modernize the H-2A guestworker program. Half of farmworkers — perhaps 1.25 million people — are believed to be undocumented.