![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/vlcsnap-2025-10-06-22h15m58s933.webp?resize=932%2C524&ssl=1\")
<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n“It\u2019s almost everybody — all the labor, tractor drivers, even some supervisors are H-2A,” he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But lately, Wroten says other farmers worry that fewer foreign workers are applying, citing fear of ICE enforcement. They offer the jobs to Americans first, but many don\u2019t want the positions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“Without the H-2A program, we\u2019d really be in a bad place,” he added. “It\u2019s hard work — it\u2019s hot, sweaty, not sexy, and most Americans don\u2019t want to do that kind of work.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
He said without migrant workers, “crops rot in the field.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Wroten says some of his employees were stopped by law enforcement agents recently, which added to their unease, even though all had valid paperwork.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“It freaked them out a little bit,” he said. “I told them, make sure you have all your papers, use your blinkers, and stop at all the stop signs.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Chris Ball, CEO of m\u00e1sLabor — one of the nation\u2019s largest recruitment agencies for agricultural workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“The workers are nervous because they see articles in the news, people getting deported and more ICE enforcement,” Ball said. “It\u2019s been a challenge to reassure workers who are coming here legally that they\u2019re safe.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n
M\u00e1sLabor has given their workers an app to show their documents digitally.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Florida consistently leads the nation in H-2A visa approvals, reflecting the state\u2019s massive agricultural industry for fruits and vegetables. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Farmers say these workers are essential to maintaining Florida\u2019s food supply, and keeping produce on grocery shelves and at markets across the region.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
In Plant City, one of Florida\u2019s agricultural hubs, farms depend heavily on migrant labor to keep fields producing and crops from rotting. Local farmer Lee Wroten says nearly all his workforce… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":58461,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"14","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","inline_featured_image":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"wpai_generated_summary":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":true,"token":"eyJpbWciOiJodHRwczpcL1wvaTAud3AuY29tXC9sYWtlbGFuZGdhemV0dGUuaW5mb1wvbmV3c1wvd3AtY29udGVudFwvdXBsb2Fkc1wvMjAyNVwvMTBcL3ZsY3NuYXAtMjAyNS0xMC0wNi0yMmgxNW01OHM5MzMud2VicD9maXQ9OTMyJTJDNTI0JnNzbD0xIiwidHh0IjoiRmxvcmlkYSBmYXJtZXJzIHN0cnVnZ2xlIGFzIGZld2VyIG1pZ3JhbnQgd29ya2VycyB3YW50IEgtMkEgdmlzYXMiLCJ0ZW1wbGF0ZSI6ImhpZ2h3YXkiLCJmb250IjoiIiwiYmxvZ19pZCI6MTYzMDQwNjYxfQ.Eq8kBYhAMbhWWPEN4eRU_sCdRYwAZ13xZN2dlomrR4UMQ"},"version":2,"attached_media":[{"id":58461,"url":"http:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/vlcsnap-2025-10-06-22h15m58s933.webp","type":"image\/webp"}]},"_wpas_customize_per_network":false},"categories":[14],"tags":[12383],"class_list":["post-58460","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-florida-farmers-struggle-as-fewer-migrant-workers-want-h-2a-visas"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58460","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=58460"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58460\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":58462,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/58460\/revisions\/58462"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/58461"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=58460"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=58460"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lakelandgazette.info\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=58460"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}