Sponsors (19)
The bill extends targeted emergency aid and resilience-building support to migrant and seasonal farmworkers and their service organizations, improving disaster response and preparedness, but requires new federal spending and risks delays or local coverage gaps if implementation and eligibility rules are not carefully managed.
Migrant and seasonal farmworkers receive direct emergency assistance (cash, services, and temporary shelter) during covered disasters, helping replace lost income and meet basic needs immediately.
Farmworker-serving organizations can receive grants to strengthen capacity and community resilience, improving preparedness and longer-term ability to respond to future disasters.
Grant funds remain available until expended, giving recipient organizations flexibility to deploy aid outside of fiscal-year timing constraints and better tailor responses to local needs.
If program outreach, staffing, or consulting resources are inadequate, the grant program could be administratively complex or slow, delaying critical aid to workers when they need it most.
Farmworkers and communities may be left without relief if local organizations do not meet the program's eligibility requirements (e.g., 501(c)(3) status or membership base), excluding some trusted local providers.
Taxpayers face increased federal spending to fund the new grant program beginning in FY2026 and annually thereafter.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Authorizes annual grants starting FY2026 to eligible farm worker organizations for emergency relief, shelter, capacity building, and resiliency services for farm workers after covered disasters.
Creates a new, ongoing federal grant program to deliver emergency relief to farm workers after qualifying disasters. Starting in fiscal year 2026, the Department of Agriculture must make grants to eligible farm worker organizations to provide direct emergency assistance, shelter and infrastructure, capacity building, community resilience, and other emergency services for migrant or seasonal farm workers when the Secretary declares a covered disaster. The law requires USDA to run outreach and promotional activities before and during grant distributions and to consult with eligible organizations; grant funds remain available until spent. The measure defines key terms such as “covered disaster,” “eligible farm worker organization,” and “migrant or seasonal farm worker.”
Introduced May 7, 2025 by Andrea Salinas · Last progress May 7, 2025