Texas Border Business
Roberto Hugo González
Texas Border Business
Dante Galeazzi, president and CEO of the Texas International Produce Association, says the H-2A agricultural worker visa program is collapsing under its own weight. “This is really the only guest worker program we have for fruits and vegetables,” he explained. Created in the early 1980s, the program requires farmers to apply 60 to 90 days before workers are needed, submitting paperwork to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Department of Labor, and the Department of Homeland Security. Workers must also appear in person at American consulates abroad for interviews to determine eligibility.
The system is expensive and bureaucratic. “These workers are eligible to work in the U.S. for up to 10 months per year, but they can only work for a single employer. And then a single employer has to list all the possible farm jobs and duties that an employee might have,” Galeazzi said. The costs quickly add up. “In Texas, these H-2A workers at the very base level have to be paid $15.79 per hour,” he noted. But farmers also must pay for travel to consulates, travel to and from the U.S., domestic transportation, housing, three meals per day, and weekly trips to town. “Those additional expenses can be somewhere between three to six dollars an hour on top of that $15.79,” Galeazzi said, pushing real costs to $20 to $21 per hour.
For small and medium-sized farms, the program can be out of reach unless they hire third-party contractors, adding another layer of expense. “That program’s expensive and like I said, there’s a lot of red tape,” Galeazzi said. “Where just those two things, yeah, we probably wouldn’t be excited about it, but you wouldn’t hear us complain too much. The problem is it’s not just that. There is a lot, a lot of issues with that program, and it’s the only program we have to bring workers in for fruits and vegetables.”
The shortage is already acute. USDA estimates Texas agriculture needs 33,000 to 36,000 farmworkers annually for fruits and vegetables. According to Galeazzi, “our H-2A usage is at 14,000.” Most workers come from Mexico, but he added that growing numbers arrive from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and even South Africa. As living standards rise in Mexico, fewer are willing to take field jobs, forcing recruiters to look further south.
The impact on production is visible. In the Winter Garden region and the Rio Grande Valley, farmers are scaling back operations. “I have farmers in Uvalde and Pearsall who would grow more and would do more, but they simply don’t have the people for it,” Galeazzi said. “They have the business, they have the land, they have the resources, but they don’t have the people. So they have to make decisions and go, well, I could do watermelons and bell peppers, but I don’t have the people, so I’m not gonna do bell peppers. I’ll just do watermelons.”
Congresswoman Monica De La Cruz (TX-15) has proposed legislation to address the crisis. On July 14, 2025, she introduced the Bracero Program 2.0 Act (H.R. 4367), designed to overhaul H-2A. “For decades, the Bracero Program created new opportunities for millions and provided critical support for Texas agriculture,” De La Cruz said in her announcement. “I am leading efforts to revive the Bracero spirit by reforming H-2A visas. This will provide solutions desperately needed for hard-working immigrants.”
The bill proposes significant changes, including a centralized electronic portal to track applications, extended contracts of up to 12 months, expansion to greenhouses and indoor farms, wages set at the state minimum plus $2 per hour, and regional labor permits that allow workers to switch employers within a state. It also mandates oversight by the Government Accountability Office on program integrity and worker protections.
Galeazzi praised the legislation. “Efforts like Monica De La Cruz’s Braceros 2.0 program are huge. We worked with the congresswoman on it… She has made sure she talked to a lot of people and gave us the ability to provide input.” He warned, however, that failure to act carries severe risks. “If we don’t fix this program, H-2A, we are just setting up the United States for several bigger issues down the road. The biggest one, though, is we are going to continue to see the death of the U.S. farmer, and we’re gonna move production overseas.”
The Bracero 2.0 Act is currently in the House Judiciary Committee, but no hearings or votes have been scheduled. For Galeazzi, the urgency is unmistakable. “This is the opportunity in D.C. to say, all right, we see that we’re putting the path of U.S. farms to total annihilation or to relocation. So, we need to change that path.”
