Sponsors (12)
Introduced May 7, 2025 by Zoe Lofgren · Last progress May 7, 2025
The bill expands legal work pathways, labor protections, housing support, and modernized verification for agricultural workers while trading off increased compliance costs, centralized data/privacy risks, verification‑error harms, and eligibility limits that could strain employers, taxpayers, and some immigrant families.
Immigrant agricultural workers (and their spouses/children) can obtain multi‑year temporary work authorization and dependent status with protections from detention/removal while applications are pending, improving family stability and access to steady employment.
Employers (especially farms) gain a more predictable, legal, and better‑defined agricultural workforce via interim employment authorization acceptance, liability protections for continuing employment of applicants, uniform electronic verification rules, and clearer timelines—reducing hiring uncertainty and compliance ambiguity.
Agricultural workers (H‑2A and others) receive stronger labor and safety protections—including guaranteed wage floors, housing/transportation rules, heat‑illness and dairy‑specific safety plans, pay transparency/recordkeeping, contractor surety bonds, anti‑retaliation protections, and enhanced enforcement/complaint processes—improving workplace safety and remedies for abuse.
Employers, labor contractors, and taxpayers face substantial new costs and administrative burdens—from bond/insurance requirements, multilingual safety plans and training, expanded recordkeeping, platform development and verification systems, to heightened compliance paperwork—which may raise operating costs, reduce small‑farm participation, and increase prices.
Centralizing and collecting extensive PII (SSNs, document photos) and building searchable employer/worker databases increases privacy and security risks and creates opportunities for misuse or breaches despite mandated safeguards and audit requirements.
Reliance on new electronic verification systems risks erroneous tentative or final nonconfirmations that can suspend or block employment, causing income disruption for workers; remedies and compensation may be delayed or insufficient in practice.
Based on analysis of 20 sections of legislative text.
Creates a temporary certified agricultural worker status, reforms H‑2A rules, mandates an electronic employment verification System, and funds farmworker housing and administrative systems.
Creates a temporary "certified agricultural worker" status for long‑term agricultural laborers and a dependent status for their spouses/children, expands and tightens rules for the H‑2A temporary worker program, and requires a new electronic employment‑eligibility verification system for agricultural hiring. It also includes worker protections (wage/working‑condition rules, anti‑retaliation, complaint and penalty schemes), employer protections for good‑faith applicants, Social Security and payroll coverage adjustments, and targeted farmworker housing funding and advisory support. Implements new employer duties (recruitment, recordkeeping, safety plans for dairy work, prohibition on charging worker fees), phased electronic verification deadlines by employer size, and interagency platforms and data‑sharing to speed H‑2A processing and reduce duplicate filings. Multiple agencies (DHS, DOL, USDA, SSA, HHS) must build systems, issue rules, and carry out inspections and enforcement under new statutory standards.