President Donald Trump addresses undecided Latino voters during a Univision Noticias town hall event in Doral, Florida, during the closing weeks of the 2024 presidential campaign.  (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) 

WASHINGTON — A majority of U.S. Latinos have grown pessimistic since the 2024 presidential election and increasingly disapprove of the immigration and economic policies of the second Trump administration, according to a new report from the Pew Research Center.

About 70% of Latinos in the U.S. disapprove of President Donald Trump’s record, with 65% disapproving of his handling of immigration and 61% saying his policies have worsened the economy, according to the report.

The report found Latinos’ views are still divided by how they voted in the last presidential election, though even Trump voters’ opinions of the president have declined.

“Those who voted for Trump express strong support for the president and his policies, while those who voted for Kamala Harris hold deeply negative views,” according to the report. 

Latinos were among the groups with the largest shifts toward Trump. In his first campaign in 2016, 28% backed him. In 2020, about 36% of Latinos voted for Trump and that support again grew in 2024, when nearly 48% supported him. Latinos are among the fastest growing demographic groups in the U.S., and are the second largest racial group in the country. 

The Nov. 24 Pew Research Center report analyzed survey responses from more than 5,500 Hispanic adults conducted from Sept. 22-28 and Oct. 6-16. The study used the terms Latino and Hispanic people interchangeably.

Disapproval on immigration 

The study found deep disapproval of the Trump administration’s immigration policies, amid aggressive immigration enforcement operations in areas with large Latino immigrant populations.

More than half of Latino adults reported that they worry that they, a family member or a close friend could be deported. Almost 59% of Latinos said they have seen or heard of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids or arrests in their community in the past six months. 

“About seven-in-ten (71%) say (the Trump administration) is doing too much when it comes to deporting immigrants living in the country illegally, up from 56% in March,” according to the study.

In his 2024 campaign, Trump promised to conduct mass deportations and end temporary legal status given to newly arrived migrants under the Biden administration.

Economic outlook worrying

Two-thirds of Latinos said their overall situation has worsened since last year.

“This is the first time that most Hispanics say their situation has worsened in nearly two decades of Pew Research Center Hispanic surveys,” according to the report. 

Inflation and the economy were major policy concerns for Latinos, like most voters, in the 2024 presidential election.

The Pew Research Center study found that in the last year, 1 in 3 Latinos struggled to pay for groceries, medical care and rent or a mortgage.

“Many Latinos also have a negative outlook on the economy’s future,” according to the study. “About half (49%) say the nation’s economy will worsen over the next year, up substantially from 2024. Another 23% say economic conditions will be about the same as now.”

Farmworkers gather produce near Hemet, Calif. The Trump administration is making it easier for farmers to employ guest workers from other countries. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)

In a tacit admission that U.S. food production requires foreign labor, the Trump administration is making it easier for farmers to employ guest workers from other countries.

At the same time, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in recent months appears to be refraining from conducting agricultural workplace raids, even as it scours Democratic-led cities for immigrants who are in the country illegally.

“We really haven’t seen agriculture targeted with worksite enforcement efforts, and early this year we did,” said Julia Gelatt, associate director of U.S. immigration policy at the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank.

The shifts come as many Americans are concerned about the rising cost of food, creating political problems for a president who campaigned on lowering them. Last week, the administration also announced it would lift tariffs on some foreign food products, including bananas, beef, coffee and tomatoes.

To ease labor shortages on farms and ranches, the administration last month made changes to the federal H-2A visa program, which allows employers to hire foreign workers for temporary agricultural jobs when there aren’t enough U.S.-born workers available. Under the new rule, the Department of Homeland Security will approve H-2A visas more quickly.

“Our immigration system has been broken for decades, and we finally have a President who is enforcing the law and prioritizing fixing programs farmers and ranchers rely on to produce the safest and most productive food supply in the world,” the U.S. Department of Agriculture said in an email to Stateline.

But the move to increase the supply of foreign agricultural workers conflicts with a July statement by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins that “the promise to America, to ensure that we have a 100% American workforce, stands.”

Rollins also said the administration was committed to the mass deportation of immigrants who are here illegally, but that it would be “strategic so as not to compromise our food supply.” Ultimately, she said, the solution would be increased automation of agricultural jobs.

The government has issued about 420,000 H-2A visas for agricultural workers every year since 2023, which amounts to about half of the 812,000 agricultural worker jobs. They are concentrated in states that grow fruits and vegetables as opposed to grains, which are increasingly planted and harvested using machines. The government expects an additional 119,000 visas to be issued under the new rule.

Almost half the H-2A visas in the 2025 fiscal year were in Florida (60,000), Georgia (44,000), California (37,000), Washington state (36,000) and North Carolina (28,000).

Lower wages

The new H-2A rule also includes new hourly wage guidelines that vary by state but are lower than previous wages, and allows employers to charge workers for housing that used to be free. In North Carolina, for instance, the new rate is $11.09 for unskilled workers compared with $16.16 last year. In California, the rate is $13.45 for unskilled workers compared with $19.97 last year, though minimum wage laws in California and some other states would apply to those jobs, according to a Cornell University analysis.

In North Carolina, farmers are looking forward to lower labor costs, said Lee Wicker, deputy director of the North Carolina Growers Association, a trade association that brought 11,000 guest workers to the state through the H-2A guest worker program last year.

“If you think farmers are making more money in these conditions, you’re wrong. They’re going broke,” Wicker said. Workers will take a pay cut under new guidelines and will have to pay for housing, but that may help farmers stave off bankruptcy, he said.

“I’m not saying the workers are going to be happy about this, but I think they’ll come back. Wages have gone down before and they kept coming,” he added.

Jeffrey Dorfman, an agricultural and resource economics professor at North Carolina State University, said the changes will be a boon to the state’s farmers.

“The move to lower the H-2A wages by the Trump administration will be very well received by growers in North Carolina and will save farmers tens of millions of dollars statewide,” Dorfman said. “For many farmers, it will turn money-losing crops into money-making crops, if prices stay about where they are now.”

Unionized California farmworkers are opposed to the pay cuts and loss of free housing in the new guest worker visa plan, said Antonio De Loera-Brust, a spokesperson for the United Farm Workers, which represents about 10,000 workers in California.

The union sued the administration over ICE raids in the fields earlier this year, but recently “it’s been pretty quiet,” he said.

“For us it’s been really a one-two punch,” De Loera-Brust said. “First came the raids, which hurt workers, and now in order to appease business interests, they make all these concessions on wages and the guest workers program.”

Fewer raids

The administration quickly walked back a June directive to avoid raids on the agriculture and hospitality industries. Nevertheless, ICE raids on those employers have been more infrequent in the months since.

In June, ICE raided a dairy farm in New Mexico and a meatpacking plant in Nebraska. Since then, the agency has raided only a handful of food and agriculture employers, such as a July raid on a California marijuana grower and an Arizona restaurant chain, and a September raid to arrest Wisconsin dairy workers.

Earlier this month, ICE agents descended on an onion farm in Northern California, arresting four immigrants on charges of illegally selling farmworker visas.

Even as ICE ramps up its activity in North Carolina cities such as Charlotte and Raleigh, Wicker, of the growers trade group, said farms in the state have not been targeted.

Gelatt, of the Migration Policy Institute, said that’s been true of farms and ranches in many states since June.

“In past administrations we’ve seen a very quiet de-emphasis of immigration enforcement at farms. You don’t need to make an announcement. You don’t need to fight in the courts,” Gelatt said. “It is possible just to direct enforcement activities away from farms. It’ll be hard to know if that’s happened now, but I would not be surprised.”

While farmworkers in California are seeing some relief from raids, life is still uneasy for them, De Loera-Brust said.

“Overall, they have clearly slowed down [raids] in ag areas, but that’s not policy. They could resume at any time. People are living with uncertainty,” he said.

Stateline reporter Tim Henderson can be reached at thenderson@stateline.org.