Agriculture secretary says there will be 'no amnesty' for migrants, adults on Medicaid can replace them in workforce

[LiberalArkie]

Source: CNN

Published 1:53 PM EDT, Tue July 8, 2025

—
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Tuesday during a news conference that there will be “no amnesty” for migrants and mass deportations will continue to achieve a “100% American workforce.” Rollins cited the number of adults in the Medicaid program, saying there are plenty of workers available in America.

“When you think about it, there are 34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program. There are plenty of workers in America, but we just have to make sure we are not compromising today, especially in the context of everything we are thinking about right now,” Rollins said. “So, no amnesty under any circumstances, mass deportations continue, but in a strategic and intentional way, as we move our workforce towards more automation and towards a 100% American workforce.”

Rollins continued, saying that deportations must be strategic, so the country’s food supply is not compromised.

“At the end of the day, the promise to America to ensure that we have a 100% American workforce stands, but we must be strategic in how we are implementing the mass deportations so as not to compromise our food supply. Ultimately, the answer on this is automation, also some reform within the current governing structure,” Rollins said

Snip

Read more: https://www.cnn.com/2025/07/08/politics/agriculture-secretary-medicaid-no-amnesty

---

I guess all the Walmart and Amazon workers on Mediate will have to quit and start farm work?

[LetMyPeopleVote]

1. Trump's agriculture head expects '34M able-bodied on Medicaid' to do farm work

These people are nuts

This is how far out of touch these people are ....

Trump's agriculture head expects '34M able-bodied on Medicaid' to do farm work www.rawstory.com/brooke-rolli...

— 🦋❄️🍁Baron🍁❄️🦋 (@baron333.bsky.social) 2025-07-08T15:25:37.619Z

https://www.rawstory.com/brooke-rollins-medicaid-farm-workers/

Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins argued that 34 million "able-bodied adults" who are at risk of losing their Medicaid benefits should be expected to take the jobs of migrants on farms.

During a Tuesday press conference, Rollins was asked about President Donald Trump's pledge to give farmers a "pass" when it came to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raids.

"There will be no amnesty," Rollins insisted. "The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way. And we move the workforce towards automation and 100% American participation, which again, with 34 million people, able-bodied adults on Medicaid, we should be able to do that fairly quickly."

[pat_k]

22. Beyond nuts

These are all estimates provided by AI, generally from 2023 data.

72 million people are enrolled in Medicaid

37 million of them are children
0.75 million of them are in nursing homes
20.5 (64%) of the 31 million working age adults are employed. Low wage jobs, new businesses, unable to work full time for various reasons.
13.8 million working age adults on medicaid are disabled.
-----
72.05 total

There are estimates that 8% of working age recipients are not working or unable to work (i.e., about 2.5 million). Given the numbers of the total in other categories, I have no idea where that estimate is coming from.

[Torchlight]

2. Corncob Karen's caught critical crazy.

"how we are implementing the mass deportations so as not to compromise our food supply..." is a chilling thing for any American to hear from leadership.

[cstanleytech]

3. What a fucking moron.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

4. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins says that "able bodied" Medicaid recipients will replace the farmworkers

Link to tweet

[rampartd]

5. the full pol pot

they think urban real estate would be valuable, if only there were not so many people.

[rurallib]

6. love to see the Rollins family show the way

and get down in the dirt and take on an ag job or two themselves.

[maxsolomon]

7. More Gaslighting. They DGAF if their statements have any relationship to reality.

They just say shit and the press has to report it.

They've PROMISED a 100% American workforce, people. Never mind that Braceros have been essential to US Agriculture since 1942.

[Deminpenn]

8. President Miller must've yelled at

her.

[Karasu]

9. ...Fucking really? These idiot fascists clearly have no fucking idea what Medicaid even is or how it works.

[pat_k]

23. I looked up the numbers. Post upthread.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143493050#post22

[Bernardo de La Paz]

10. Sure, folks are revving up their wheelchairs in Boston and Tuscon eager to go to Louisiana and Nebraska. :eyes: . . nt

[pat_k]

24. I looked up the numbers. Post upthread.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143493050#post22

[tonkatoy8888]

11. A number of questions come to mind

Will all the low wage workers now on Medicaid have to leave their jobs to join TAG (Trump Agricultural Group}? If so, are Wal-Mart, Amazon, every grocery chain in America, and all other low wage employers who use Medicaid to avoid paying a living wage going to be compensated?

Will their wages be garnished to pay the government for Medicaid services?

What are the logistics of this? Do they have to make their own way to California, Florida, or the Skagit Valley or will the Dept of Agriculture, or maybe ICE, provide transportation? Will they be housed in the grower's migrant shacks or have to sleep rough in the fields? Will they be transported to the next area for the next crops to be harvested?

Are they going to be paid or just receive Trump Bucks to use at a company store?

This is a seriously bad idea that no one has asked the most basic questions about. This is the most incompetent government ever. All of them think if they wish in one hand and shit in the other, they're going to get a handful of wishes instead of shit.

[pat_k]

25. Yes. Insanity.

Great questions. Particularly when viewed in the context of the actual numbers:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143493050#post22

[lark]

12. Telling the horrible part outloud - people on Medicaid not healthy enough to work regular jobs will do farm labor?

OR ELSE cut off of everything they need to live. Their hatred of the poor and working class is psychotic. They know 100% this will fail and crops won't be picked and they will rot. Just more ways to kill us.

[pat_k]

26. And if you're interested, here are the numbers:

https://www.democraticunderground.com/10143493050#post22

[lark]

13. Is she talking about pregnant woman and women with very young children, those are only ones with Medicaid and healthy

and not working - at least that's what FL has been doing every since Bush. Does she think they can work in the killer FL sun? What a loathesome group of fascist asses these krasnov appointees are. Just as expected,

[twodogsbarking]

14. They won't be hard to find, they are living in nursing homes.

not

[twodogsbarking]

15. I grew up on a farm and worked there until after college.

It was hard work for a young healthy person. Only morons would think just anyone can do it. Morons. You know,
morons.

[Buddyzbuddy]

16. Has anybody else seen the produce section, recently.

AG Sec. Is hurting Americans not just migrants. But they're Republican, enuff said? Lettuce, wilted and brown, potatoes, rotted, tomatoes way over ripe. It's only going to get worse.

[patphil]

17. Funny thing about that. Almost everyone on Medicaid who can work is working.

The silly ass Republicans bought their own BS about people on Medicaid not working. There's nothing worse than creating a lie and then buying into it as if it was truth.
A classic oversell and self own by the most stupid, ill-informed group of congressional and administrative branch dummies in the history of the nation.
Hey, Secretary Rollins, there isn't any large untapped workforce of Medicaid recipients.

[pat_k]

27. Perhaps it's the 37 million children on Medicaid they want to send to the fields.

The numbers say it all.

These are all estimates provided by AI, generally from 2023 data.

72 million people are enrolled in Medicaid

37 million of them are children
0.75 million of them are in nursing homes
20.5 (64%) of the 31 million working age adults are employed. Low wage jobs, new businesses, unable to work full time for various reasons.
13.8 million working age adults on medicaid are disabled.
-----
72.05 total

There are estimates that 8% of working age recipients are not working or unable to work (i.e., about 2.5 million). Given the numbers of the total in other categories, I have no idea where that estimate is coming from.

[patphil]

36. A lot of red states have been modifying their child labor laws to allow kids to work more hours and at a younger age.

And also to be employed in jobs they previously weren't allow to have, like mill work, where they would be operating machines.
The problem with using child labor is how to mesh it with their school time.
I would imagine the answer will be less class time at school, and less, or no extracurricular activities.
This is probably the unwritten part of project 2025; replacing adult migrant workers with kids, medicaid recipients, and all those former Federal employees.
After all, we're essentially at full employment now, so they need millions more available workers.
Eventually, they also expect AI to reduce the workforce of skilled and semi-skilled workers, who would then be available to take the low end, non-skilled labor jobs.
This is a vast social restructuring; a return to the time of a small aristocracy at the top, serfs at the bottom, and an overseer class to keep the serfs in line.
I don't think their plans will work, at least not without a lot of bloodshed.

[Blackjackdavey]

18. Tick tock

Almost. Getting closer. Had to pass the bill first and get the camps built but in a few months, an executive order outlawing houselessness and the homeless round ups will begin. They'll ofc be provided with free housing in those aforementioned migrant shacks or at one of the camps. They'll get to choose! Freedom!

[eringer]

19. MAGA Hatted Medicaid recipients picking Strawberries

I guess this MAGA ball caps will come in handy keeping the hot sun from further baking their brains.

[pat_k]

29. Turned around to protect their necks of course.

[catrose]

20. Sick people should pick the crops?

Look, there are people still alive who still remember picking cotton for a "living." Let's have Congressional hearings and get them there to tell their stories. Then we can have field trips and dump Congress and department heads in Louisiana, the Rio Grande Valley, and California to harvest the crops. They'll be paid. Quarter a bushel or similar.

[BidenRocks]

21. Enjoy your produce

How many workers will die from the heat to satisfy their hatred?
White folk will tell you to stick the carrot up your ass?

I heard the admin say they can tech their way around missing workers.
So full of shit!

[applegrove]

28. To say something a Republican would say: "that is so inefficient".

[NoMoreRepugs]

30. There are literally no competent individuals in the trump administration.

[PortTack]

31. Too f..king ridiculous for words....Doomed to fail!

[raccoon]

33. Yeah, disabled people will make great farm workers. :sarcasm:

[LetMyPeopleVote]

34. Maddow Blog-Agriculture secretary suggests Medicaid recipients can replace immigrants as farmworkers

If the Trump administration is counting on Americans on Medicaid replacing immigrants on farms, officials should probably start working on a Plan B.

Agriculture secretary suggests Medicaid recipients can replace immigrants as farmworkers.
If the Trump administration is counting on Americans on Medicaid replacing immigrants on farms, officials should probably start working on a Plan B.
www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— hateGOP (@hategop.bsky.social) 2025-07-08T21:36:08.484Z

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/agriculture-secretary-suggests-medicaid-recipients-can-replace-immigra-rcna217572

Soon after, Team Trump reversed course, and then reversed course yet again. As recently as last week, the president talked about developing a temporary pass for immigrants who work on farms, which was the opposite of what his “border czar” said a week earlier.

This week, as Reuters reported, the moving target moved again:

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Tuesday that there will be ‘no amnesty’ for agricultural workers from the Trump administration’s efforts to deport all immigrants in the country illegally. The farm sector has warned that mass deportation of farm workers would disrupt the U.S. food supply.

To be sure, the Cabinet secretary’s comments were newsworthy, though if recent history is any guide, a prominent White House official, including possibly Donald Trump himself, will contradict Rollins very soon.

But of particular interest was something else the agriculture secretary said.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/post/3lthhwchvtw2h

Link to tweet

“I can’t emphasize this enough,” Rollins said. “There will be no amnesty; the mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way; and we move the workforce toward automation and 100% American participation, which with 34 million able-bodied adults on Medicaid, we should be able to do fairly quickly.”

In other words, as the agriculture secretary sees it, there’s no need for concern about farmers losing out on immigrant labor because those workers can be replaced thanks to “automation” and Medicaid beneficiaries......

But what I find myself stuck on is Rollins’ quote in the context of the Republicans’ domestic policy megabill. GOP policymakers approved sweeping and unprecedented cuts to Medicaid, arguing that Americans who lose coverage can simply get jobs that offer health insurance.

It’s against this backdrop that the secretary of agriculture suggested that Medicaid beneficiaries — whose coverage is at risk — can replace immigrants as farmworkers, brushing past the inconvenient fact that farmworkers tend not to get health care coverage.

All of which is to say, if the administration is counting on Americans on Medicaid replacing immigrants on farms, officials should probably start working on a Plan B.

[Jilly_in_VA]

35. My "working age" son

who receives Medicaid is 53 and is disabled. He is autistic and not exactly on the upper end of the scale, although he is able to live on his own with support. If she seriously expects him to do farm labor, she is mistaken. He might be able to do it for short periods but would quickly succumb to heat exhaustion. He is only one of millions who could not. She is seriously delusional.

[ananda]

37. They really think this will work? Fuckng nutz!

!@#$%