Mass Deportations Could Disrupt US Food Supply Chain, Experts Say

In the U.K., Brexit’s impact on the labor market hit quickly, leading to workforce shortages and even empty supermarket shelves in fresh produce aisles, she said.

“Brexit wasn’t about an illegal workforce — it was about restricting access to anyone who wasn’t British,” Guignard said. “Before Brexit, European workers didn’t need a visa to work in the U.K., so many seasonal workers returned each year for the harvest. But with Brexit introducing new visa requirements, many left and didn’t return. This was further exacerbated by COVID-19, which restricted movement across borders and made it even harder for farms to bring in seasonal labor. Romania, for example, had been a major source of agricultural workers, but by the time Brexit was fully enforced, the combination of new immigration rules and pandemic-related disruptions had already created severe labor shortages.”

Guignard warned that a similar loss of immigrant labor in the U.S. could cause major disruptions, particularly in the agriculture and food processing sectors.

“We’re already seeing movement from Trump on illegal immigration, and the impact on harvesting key crops like citrus could be significant. If production drops, it will have a ripple effect across processing, transportation, and the broader economy,” she said. “A reduced harvest means less food for processing, which affects supply chains and logistics. Ultimately, this could push up food prices and impact consumers nationwide.”

President Donald Trump has declared illegal immigration a national emergency since returning to the White House for his second term on Jan. 20. The Trump administration has ramped up its mass deportation efforts, expanding the use of expedited removal across the country.

It’s unclear how many undocumented immigrants have been deported over the past four weeks.

U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, part of the Department of Homeland Security, did not respond to a request for comment from FreightWaves.

DHS agents had arrested 8,768 people as of Feb. 3, the agency posted on X.

Mexican President Claudia Sheinbaum said her country has received 14,470 deportees from the U.S. since the Trump-ordered deportations began.

“Since Jan. 20, 14,470 people have returned, 11,379 Mexicans and 3,091 foreigners,” Sheinbaum said during her daily news conference on Feb. 17.

According to estimates from the Center for Migration Studies, over 8 million illegal immigrants work in the U.S. economy, about 5% of the workforce. Some of the highest totals of undocumented migrants work in construction (1.5 million), restaurants (1 million), agriculture (320,000), landscaping (300,000), and food processing and manufacturing (200,000).

John Walt Boatright, director of government affairs for the American Farm Bureau, said immigrants play an important role in the food supply chain.

“Agriculture, and our economy, rely on foreign workers to put food on the table,” Boatright said in an email to FreightWaves. “It’s widely accepted that the immigration system must be fixed, but solutions should ensure vital industries like farming, processing, distribution and food services are not harmed by unintended consequences. These are solutions that Congress must address, not just a presidential administration.”

Migrant workers are important to Florida’s agriculture industry, said Thomas Kennedy, a spokesman for the Florida Immigrant Coalition, a group whose website states that it engages in “pro-immigrant advocacy, education and community building across the state.”

“There’s a ton of undocumented, unauthorized labor in the state and in the agriculture sector,” Kennedy told FreightWaves in an interview. “Some of the workers are here on work visas, but a lot of them are undocumented. It’s estimated that 37% to 47% of the state’s agricultural workforce are noncitizens, so it’s a huge population.”

According to the Office of Homeland Security Statistics, the highest percentages of undocumented migrants reside in California, the District of Columbia and Texas. 

A nonprofit organization in Detroit that delivered fresh produce and grocery boxes to hundreds of needy families every month reportedly had to shut the program down due to the recent immigration deportations.

Hey Y’all Detroit said the deportations disrupted the Texas farm that supplied the nonprofit with fresh produce and caused the farm to shut down.

“This was a huge blow,” Charmane Neal, the founder of Hey Y’all Detroit, told Detroit Public Radio. “We had to, unfortunately, completely stop the produce delivery program. I mean not only is all of our supply gone now, but we don’t actually have the distribution center to do the logistics, and we also don’t have the vehicles or the manpower to actually run this program on the scale that we were running it on.”

Dante Galeazzi, president and CEO of the Texas International Produce Association (TIPA), said his organization has not heard of any farms in the region being disrupted by immigrant deportations.

TIPA is based in Mission, in the Texas Rio Grande Valley, one of the largest agricultural hubs in the state. Farms in the valley produce grapefruit, oranges, watermelons, onions, grains, cotton and more. 

Undocumented immigrants totaled about 6,200 people in the Rio Grande Valley, accounting for almost 19% of the immigrant population, according to a 2019 study from the American Immigration Council.

“At this time, we have not seen any impact. Further, we have not seen an indication either that U.S. Customs and Border Protection will be targeting the migrant workers present in Texas agriculture,” Galeazzi said in an email to FreightWaves. “That said, the association is taking steps to make Texas producers and industry aware of their rights and to reaffirm compliance with all existing rules.”

After Brexit triggered labor shortages across the U.K.’s agricultural and other sectors, the government attempted to fill the gaps with domestic workers, Guignard said.

“It’s unrealistic to assume that domestic workers will take on these roles instead of immigrants,” she said. “In the U.K., the government launched a campaign called ‘Pick for Britain’ to encourage British workers to do the harvests, but it failed — very few people signed up. The reality is that these jobs are tough, seasonal, and often poorly paid, so they struggle to attract local workers.”

Looking ahead, Guignard advised restaurants, retailers, and businesses reliant on fresh produce to focus on diversifying their supplier base to mitigate risks.

“For supermarkets and food businesses, diversifying sources and building strategic supplier relationships is key,” she said. “It sounds simple, but many businesses only engage with their key suppliers once a year. Maintaining stronger relationships means that when a disruption occurs, you’re more likely to secure priority access to supply compared to competitors.”