Trump’s Immigration Axe Leaves 20% of Meatpacking Workers on the Chopping Block

The meat industry’s workforce is getting butchered by immigration policy changes. After President Trump terminated the CHNV work permit program in June — which had allowed eligible Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans, and Venezuelans to work in the US for two years — facilities nationwide lost 10–20% of their workforce. The labor-intensive sector in Wisconsin has since struggled to fill jobs, following the rollback of the Biden-era initiative that gave some fleeing political unrest a legal path to employment.

• Major processors like JBSJBS
  and American Foods Group cut hundreds of workers, including 200 at a JBS Iowa pork plant and ~80 Haitians at a Minnesota beef facility.
• Despite offering aggressive competitive wages of $17 per hour plus healthcare and tuition benefits, meat processing plants “continue to face labour challenges” after losing these workers.

The economic knife cuts deep: Wisconsin alone hosts 320K immigrants generating $23B in annual economic output, yet ICE arrests have doubled under current policies, creating bottlenecks that restrict growth potential. Economists believe labor shortages could drive grocery prices higher. Combined with record-high beef prices and the lowest cattle inventory since 1973, these labor disruptions could leave both workers and consumers to swallow the costs of policy changes.