Medicaid Recipients: Ask Your MAGA Member of Congress If They Think Farm Work Is Right For You

Fear not, the Trump administration has it all figured it out: just replace deported farmworkers with Medicaid recipients.

The Trump team apparently has an answer for low-income seniors worried about losing their Medicaid coverage under the big, ugly budget bill: swap-out your Bengay and fire up the sunscreen because you’re going to go work in the fields! In widely-panned remarks, Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins stated that the solution to the brutal ICE raids targeting the essential farmworkers who feed our nation isn’t to create a pathway to citizenship to keep putting food on America’s table. Nope, the Trump MAGA plan instead is demonically brilliant: just replace deported laborers with Medicaid recipients!

“There’s been a lot of noise in the last few days and a lot of questions about where the president stands and his vision for farm labor,” Rollins stated at the White House on July 8. “Ultimately, the answer on this is automation, also some reform within the current governing structure, and then also, when you think about there are 34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program, there are plenty of workers in America.”

34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program – that’s gotta be a revelation for Medicaid recipients themselves and the experts who can say with certainty that this figure exists only in Rollins’ head.

“The idea that there are 34 million ‘able-bodied adults’ on Medicaid who can be easily relocated to work picking crops is pure fantasy,” Common Dreams reported. “In the first place, an estimated 64% of American adults who receive Medicaid already work, and most of those adult recipients who don't have jobs are either primary caregivers, are attending school, or have an illness or disability that prevents them from working.” 

But rather than acknowledge her idea was absolutely bananas, Rollins appeared to double-down, saying that “moving a lot of able-bodied Americans off of the government programs into those work opportunities is really what’s next.” Hopefully Congressional members allied with the administration have been taking notes, because they’re going to have to sell this plan to constituents who stand to lose their coverage. From the most recent analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office:

• In Arizona Rep. Juan Ciscomani’s district, 16,925 constituents are expected to lose Medicaid coverage under the big, ugly budget bill he helped pass.

• In California Rep. David Valadao’s district, 56,940 constituents are expected to lose Medicaid coverage under the big, ugly budget bill he helped pass.

• In Nebraska Rep. Don Bacon’s district, 9,236 constituents are expected to lose Medicaid coverage under the big, ugly budget bill he helped pass.

• In New Jersey Rep. Jefferson Van Drew’s district, 16,294 constituents are expected to lose Medicaid coverage under the big, ugly budget bill he helped pass.

• In Pennsylvania Rep. Rob Bresnahan’s district, 20,499 constituents are expected to lose Medicaid coverage under the big, ugly budget bill he helped pass.

• In Virginia Rep. Jen Kiggans’ district, 11,911 constituents are expected to lose Medicaid coverage under the big, ugly budget bill she helped pass.

• In California Rep. Young Kim district, 15,315 constituents are expected to lose Medicaid coverage under the big, ugly budget bill she helped pass. 

• In New York Rep. Mike Lawler’s district, 29,716 constituents are expected to lose Medicaid coverage under the big, ugly budget bill he helped pass.

• In Virginia Rep. Rob Wittman’s district, 11,467 constituents are expected to lose Medicaid coverage under the big, ugly budget bill he helped pass.

• In New York Rep. Nicole Malliotakis’ district, 34,154 constituents are expected to lose Medicaid coverage under the big, ugly budget bill she helped pass.

• In New York Rep. Nick LaLota’s district, 16,195 constituents are expected to lose Medicaid coverage under the big, ugly budget bill he helped pass.

• In New York Rep. Andrew Garbarino’s district, 25,520 constituents are expected to lose Medicaid coverage under the big, ugly budget bill he helped pass.

• In Colorado Rep. Jeff Hurd’s district, 22,579 constituents are expected to lose Medicaid coverage under the big, ugly budget bill he helped pass.

In total, more than 286,000 constituents from these 13 districts alone stand to lose their Medicaid despite all 13 members signing an April 17 letter claiming they “‘cannot and will not’ vote for legislation that reduces Medicaid coverage for those who need it.” In the end, the letter wasn’t worth the paper it was printed on (but it did get them some nice headlines to use for their campaigns!), because every single one of them voted for the final package gutting Medicaid and food assistance in order to fund Stephen Miller’s mass deportation dreams and tax cuts for the super wealthy. 

Additionally, two of these members – Valadao and Malliotakis – also signed a June 12 letter feigning concern over Miller’s deportation overreach and politely urging deportation officials to instead focus on individuals who actually do pose a public safety threat. 

These masked abductions should be a pressing matter for Valadao in particular, who represents an agriculture-rich district, including Delano, which has a history as a hub of farmworker organizing. These essential workers are now under threat by Miller’s unsparing mass deportation agenda. “US undocumented farm workers feel ‘hunted like animals’ amid Trump’s immigration raids,” The Guardian reports. “You can’t go out peacefully to do things, or go to work with any peace of mind anymore,” one farmworker told the outlet. “We’re stressed out and our kids are stressed out. No one is the same since these raids started.” 

But in the end, Valadao voted to give Miller all the money he needs to turn ICE into the largest federal law enforcement agency in the nation anyway. 

Events since then have only highlighted the dangers of handing ICE billions of taxpayer dollars with no strings attached. Just days ago, a farmworker in Camarillo, a farm working community just south of Valadao’s district, died after falling off a roof during a chaotic workplace raid. “Jaime Alanís, 57, had worked at the farm in Camarillo for 10 years and provided for his wife and daughter who live in Mexico,” Democracy Now! reported. “Alanís is the first known person to die during an immigration raid since President Trump returned to office.”

Farmers had some thoughts for Rollins, who was appointed not for her agricultural experience – she doesn’t have any – but for her loyalty. Rollins’ America First Policy Institute played a major role in creating policy and personnel for the incoming administration – a rival to Heritage’s Project 2025 only in style, not substance.

“I can confidently say that most farmers in the country either laughed out loud or were just deflated by those comments,” Helen McGrath, a citrus and avocado grower in Central California, told the Los Angeles Times. “It just shows how uninformed and out of touch some of these officials are with what food production looks like in this country.”

The remarks from Rollins can also be seen as an example of the callousness and contempt that the administration and its allies hold for both undocumented communities and the non-wealthy. Just a few days earlier, Vice President JD Vance called slashing coverage for millions of disabled and poor Americans “immaterial.” What mattered most, he said, was funding mass deportation. But while both Rollins and Vance have the benefit of being able to largely avoid the real people who keep this nation running, August recess is coming and members will go home to their districts. They should be ready to defend the senseless and destructive deportation of essential workers – and tell their constituents what Rollins has planned for them.