A farm employee works near Coachella, Calif., in 2024. A California union has sued to stop new, lower-wage guidelines for foreign worker visas. (Photo by Mario Tama/Getty Images)
A California union and a group of farmworkers from around the country are suing to stop new, lower-wage federal guidelines that save money for farmers but cut pay for temporary foreign agriculture workers — hurting local laborers as a result, the suit alleges.
In a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court, the United Farm Workers and 18 individual workers sued the U.S. Department of Labor over the October guidelines for laborers who are in the United States under temporary, H-2A visas. The new guidelines set lower wages — differentiating them by state — including pay cuts to account for the value of free housing provided by law to foreign workers.
“Farm workers, and the rural communities across America they sustain, need and deserve fair wages and job security, not a race to the bottom with an endless supply of cheap foreign labor,” Teresa Romero, president of the United Farm Workers, said in a statement announcing the lawsuit.
The new Trump administration rules are “drastically cutting the minimum wage that U.S. employers must pay foreign farmworkers, all while costs and wages in other sectors have sharply increased,” the lawsuit states, adding that the lower pay for foreign workers will also force cuts for American workers. The lawsuit asks a federal judge in California to halt implementation of the guidelines and recalculate wages.
The lawsuit also objects to first-time pay differentials based on the value of employer-provided housing. It alleges violations of laws requiring that foreign visas not affect wages of U.S. workers with similar jobs.
The cuts “will severely impact farmworkers — some of the most vulnerable members of our society and many of whom already live in poverty,” according to the lawsuit.
One worker, not identified by name, works in Missouri with an H-2A foreign worker visa was formerly paid $17.83 an hour and will suffer a $4.08 pay cut, leaving him unable to afford food and essential protective clothing for his job helping with squash, eggplant and other vegetables, according to the lawsuit.
One worker, Irene Mendoza, a U.S. citizen, said in the lawsuit that her wages could be cut by $3.22 an hour, to $13.78, because of the guidelines, even though she doesn’t need a foreign worker visa, forcing her to get a second job to pay for food, housing and transportation between jobs in some of the states where she works. Mendoza said in the lawsuit that she works picking and packing green beans and potatoes in Michigan, Minnesota, Texas and Wisconsin.
The lower wage guidelines vary by state and are subject to state minimum wage laws that could make them higher in some states. In North Carolina, for instance, the new hourly wage is $11.09 for less-skilled workers, compared with $16.16 last year, and $12.27 for local workers who don’t need housing, according to a Cornell University analysis.
The Department of Labor referred a Stateline request for comment to the Department of Justice, which declined comment.
Some farmers and experts have hailed the new guidelines as lifesavers that will stave off bankruptcy as costs rise and some prices for their farm goods stay low.
Almost half the H-2A visas in the 2025 fiscal year were in a small group of states including Florida (60,000), Georgia (44,000), California (37,000), Washington state (36,000) and North Carolina (28,000). The government expects an additional 119,000 visas to be issued under the new rule, on top of the nearly 420,000 a year issued in recent years.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
A rule aimed at protecting waterways from pollution is the latest outcome of a power struggle between Gov. Tony Evers and the GOP legislation over state agencies' authority.
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.
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.
– Antonio De Loera-Brust, United Farm Workers
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.
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.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
Hemp plant at a farm in Minnesota. (Photo by Baylor Spears)
When Jacob Diener first heard that the status of hemp could be reviewed, he wasn’t too concerned. With his company, A Good Plug, the 32-year-old expected to continue producing small batch hemp products like gummies, brownies, and cheesecakes.
“It seems around this time it happens every year that they want to re-assess the Farm Bill,” Diener told the Wisconsin Examiner. But 2025 was different and Diener, like others across the industry, was caught off guard when what amounted to a prohibition on his livelihood was discreetly attached to a deal to end the longest government shutdown in U.S. history. “It’s just weird and scary,” he said.
Hemp businesses were allowed to flourish after the passage of the 2018 Farm Bill, which legalized the production and distribution of hemp products with no more than 0.3% THC on a dry weight basis. But under new rules that were included in the stopgap spending bill ending the federal government shutdown last week, products must contain no more than 0.4 milligrams of THC per container.
Jacob Diener, owner of A Good Plug. (Photo by Isiah Holmes/Wisconsin Examiner)
Steve Hampton, owner of the Eau Claire-based company Steve’s Hemp, says that standard is biologically impossible to meet. “[The] hemp plant struggles to grow to meet that guideline before it’s even harvested,” Hampton told the Wisconsin Examiner. “So, we’re seeing upwards to 99% of the industry get wiped out from this.”
THC is the primary psychoactive compound in the cannabis plant. Although hemp and the psychoactive variety commonly known as marijuana are the same plant species, they have different chemical compositions. Many cannabis varieties are cultivated with high levels of THC for markets in states where the plant has been legalized medical or recreational.
Hemp, with far lower concentrations of THC, is mostly used for rope, paper and industrial products. It is also offered in states that do not have legal cannabis markets as an alternative — a source for products containing delta-9 THC, THCa, THCp and other derivatives.
The law reopening the government, however, effectively bans those products and gives the industry until next November to adapt or fizzle out. Erin Kelly, owner of the Wauwatosa-based hemp goods store Kelly’s Greens, told TMJ4 that even CBD products contain trace amounts of THC which make them effective medicine, and that the new rules would render that medicine ineffective. Wisconsin’s hemp industry is estimated to be valued at $700 million and accounts for at least 3,500 jobs, according to the Wisconsin State Journal.
“Everybody’s frantic, you know, we’re all worried,” Hampton told the Examiner. Without an amendment to the new rules or legislative intervention, Hampton says the nation’s $28.4 billion hemp industry won’t survive, and that most of his own store’s inventory would be banned.
More than just a cash crop
When he was a teenager in Fond du Lac, Diener was introduced to cannabis through his grandmother, who used it to manage her pain and chronic illnesses. He began using it to help with his stress and the early signs of Crohn’s disease he was experiencing
After years of working in the restaurant industry, Diener realized he wanted more out of life. “And so I started to get permission from my chef to start making candy in the kitchen behind the scenes, just learning the basics, but with the intentions that I wanted to make infused candy, gummy worms, stuff like that,” he said. “Stuff that I didn’t see on the market at the time.”
Hampton also became involved in hemp after experiencing the medicinal value of the plant. “I was a college student at the time,” he said, “and was looking for some relief with some back pain, some sore muscles from the gym. And my dad had actually bought me some CBD oil to test out for my birthday. And it was from a local farm up here in northern Wisconsin. That helped me a ton with what I needed it for.”
Steve Hampton, owner of Steve’s Hemp in Eau Claire Wisconsin. (Photo courtesy of Steve Hampton)
Hampton realized that there were not many such products marketed to younger people like him. He grew his business online before opening a storefront during Small Business Week in 2021. Today Hampton, 29, owns and operates his business alongside his wife and five employees. People of all ages come into his store. “In-store, we have a lot of customers who come in just looking for relief,” he said. Many of the customers are seeking a remedy for anxiety, as well as “a large handful of customers that have chronic pain,” he said.
Steve’s Hemp carries flowers, vapes, gummies, candies, topical ointments and other products. Diener, who specializes in culinary cannabis products, makes everything from Nerds-covered gummies (a popular product he calls “Stoney Bites”) to other sweets. Diener describes his customers as “such a community of oddballs and people who have unique personalities. And that’s what I’ve always hoped for, and that’s kind of what I come from and who I am a person. People authentic to themselves.”
The cost of prohibition
Before the federal ban on THC-derived hemp products was added to the bill to reopen the government, Republican lawmakers in Wisconsin were already working on bills to restrict or prohibit the industry in the state. Representatives Lindee Brill (R-Sheboygan Falls), Jim Piwowarczyk (R-Hubertus) and others introduced what they called “a common-sense corrective bill” to close the “loophole” that allowed what they called “dangerous, psychoactive THC-laced products to proliferate in Wisconsin.”
The lawmakers pointed to health advisory warnings issued by federal agencies about the use of delta-9 THC, and issues with unregulated markets across the country. In Wisconsin, hemp products from CBD to delta-9, HHH, THCa, and others can either be found at dispensaries where employees are often knowledgeable about their products, or at gas stations and smoke shops where customers don’t receive information and guidance. Wisconsin lawmakers have raised an alarm about emergency room visits and poison center calls linked to delta-8 THC and similar compounds, as well as concerns that children could easily purchase the products.
A hemp plant at a Cottage Grove farm. Hemp, used for industrial purposes and now grown legally in Wisconsin, is made from a variety of the cannabis plant that is low in THC, the active ingredient that is responsible for the intoxicating effect of marijuana. (Wisconsin Examiner photo)
Hemp business owners say they often applaud common sense regulation. They also support fully legalizing cannabis in Wisconsin — ending prohibition. To address concerns about health consequences and children’s access to cannabis, “what would really help that is regulation, not prohibition,” Hampton said.
Everything from clear packaging guidelines to age restrictions, lab testing and education about where the product comes from and what it does could be part of a legal regulatory structure, Hampton argued. Rather than allowing any gas station to carry hemp products, Hampton would like to see licensed facilities staffed by people who care about what they’re doing. “Our main goal with this business was to educate our customers, and know what’s in our product, and recommend what would work best for our customer,” he said.
One 2024 study analyzing national poison data systems found that between 2021 and 2022, reports of exposure to delta-8 THC increased by 79%. The study also found that poison center calls for delta-8 were significantly lower in places where either delta-THC was banned, or where cannabis use was already legalized. “Consistent regulation of delta-THC across all states should be adopted,” the study recommended. Other poison center data shows that since 2022, exposures to delta-8 THC have plummeted, a trend which has continued into 2025.
Prohibition also creates economic stagnation, advocates contend. Tim Frey, of Ignite Dispensary and Cigar calls it “Wisconsin’s half a billion dollar loss.”
Frey lobbied against state Republican bills to restrict hemp, and he argues that hundreds of millions are essentially handed over to Michigan and Illinois every year when Wisconsinites make the sometimes difficult decision to travel across state lines to obtain cannabis.
“Now that Minnesota is opening up, with the largest border, we’re probably going to be losing approximately up to $200 million,” Frey told Wisconsin Examiner. “And then if they came up with a small tax on hemp-derived stuff, that’s easily $100 million there, if not more, give or take. So it’s going to be around half a billion dollars that Wisconsin could use to give to law enforcement, get fentanyl off our streets, reduce property taxes, invest in roads” and other uses.
Getty Images
Hampton fears that now customers will go to the black market or risk being pulled over after driving to a neighboring state. “I just don’t understand why they thought that prohibition would be the right answer,” he said.
As some Wisconsin legislators are working to enact a new prohibition on hemp products, others are trying to legalize medicinal THC cannabis in the state. Earlier this year, two-thirds of registered voters polled by Marquette Law School said that cannabis should be legalized in Wisconsin. Meanwhile, Republican lawmakers have introduced what would be one of the country’s most restrictive medicinal cannabis programs.
Frey is cautious of the medical-cannabis-only approach, however, “because it’s very hard to qualify with some ailments,” he told the Wisconsin Examiner. He added that if Wisconsin passed a restrictive medical cannabis program, then it would open the door for the state’s indigenous tribal communities, as sovereign nations, to open their own recreational programs. “So then we would be a recreational state without the control, or the revenue,” he said.
Diener said that when conservative lawmakers talk about cannabis, they sound at least 10 years behind the times. “I think that right now there’s such extreme viewpoints on it that are outdated, and really just don’t line up with today’s market or today’s values with the plant,” he said.
Frey believes that it’s past time Wisconsin had a serious discussion about legalization. “Limit the licenses,” he declared. “Control this, tax it, get licenses out there to responsible people that are going to do things the right way — that card people, that do truth-in labeling, that care about the quality of their products.”
In addition to strict regulation, Diener said parents can protect their children from hemp products instead of the government banning them. “You have the responsibility just the same as if you have a gun in the home to keep your things in a safe space that your children cannot access,” Diener said. “You wouldn’t have your alcohol bottle sitting just, like, within reach or in a cupboard that your kids know they can access. Even growing up as a teen, when my mom knew that I was starting to go to parties and stuff, she would start to hide her alcohol.”
After the federal hemp laws were changed, Piwowarczyk, in a television interview, said unsympathetically of hemp business owners that “you guys took a gamble when you decided to open up your hemp business.”
Hampton counters that lawmakers like Piwowarczyk should “open their eyes, and look around, and actually meet with the constituents of their districts” who are the consumers driving the industry.
Uneasy months ahead
For now, hemp distributors and their allies have until next November to adjust to the new federal restrictions. Frey said Wisconsin could provide some protection for the industry by enacting its own regulations for hemp products, similar to the way states have legalized cannabis industries despite the ongoing federal prohibition.
There are already state-level legislative responses in the works, he said. One bill, AB 503, would redefine the definition of hemp to prohibit THC-derived products. Another, AB 606, would add hemp to the responsibilities of the agency in the Department of Revenue that regulates alcohol. A bill authored by Senate Democrats, SB 644, would create a regulated framework and age limits for hemp products, though it lacks Republican co-sponsors. Sen. Patrick Testin (R-Stevens Point) is circulating a draft bill for co-sponsorship that also regulates hemp products.
Steve’s Hemp in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. (Photo courtesy of Steve Hampton)
“That bill is probably the best, most common-sense written bill that I’ve seen,” Frey told the Wisconsin Examiner. While the Democratic bill would be promising, he said, he thinks it won’t gain Republican support.
“It’s more crucial to protect this industry in Wisconsin than it is to craft the most perfect bill,” said Frey, adding that he thinks the hemp industry will get behind Testin’s bill “full force”.
At the same time, however, Frey wonders whether the federal regulations will change by next November. He points out that the new law gives the industry a year to adapt instead of imposing a ban immediately.
Frey thinks that if Wisconsin passes hemp regulations but the federal laws remain the same, then the hemp industry would risk losing its federal task deductions and also lose the ability to conduct interstate commerce.
If there is no change to save the hemp industry, a cascade of effects will ripple out. Earlier this year, Hampton opened a new manufacturing facility just down the street from the Steve’s Hemp storefront. In the middle of next year, he will likely have to close that as well, he said.
Once the new law takes effect, “our hands are pretty much tied,” said Hampton. “My wife and I will have to find new jobs for each other, continue to make ends meet. And then those families that work for us — those employees that work for us — will have to do the same.” Until then, Diener said, “I am going to continue to serve the people who need us the most and work to continue growing this dream and keeping this dream alive.”
Hampton and his employees “are obsessed and passionate about this industry,” Hampton said. “We started this industry with hopes to run a legal dispensary out of Wisconsin, and hopefully transition into that. Now that plan is crushed. And so we don’t know what we’re going to do. We’re just going to try to keep our hopes up, and try to fight as much as we can to keep [hemp] legal, and if that isn’t possible, get recreational cannabis pushed through the state of Wisconsin.”
The agricultural industry is feeling the strain from President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, and Republican lawmakers are certainly hearing about it back home.
What elected officials will do about farmers’ frustrations is much less clear — an indication that relief could be far away.
“Members are beginning to talk about it, but it doesn’t feel as though a particular solution is coming into focus yet, and clearly the White House is going to be the most important player in these conversations,” said Rep. Dusty Johnson, who sits on the House Agriculture Committee.
Ongoing Immigration and Customs Enforcement raids in agricultural centers, from California to Wisconsin to New York, have increased pressure on members of Congress to provide fixes for farmers who say they are facing labor shortages.
In Wisconsin, for example, a 2023 University of Wisconsin study found that 70% of labor on the state’s dairy farms was done by undocumented workers. Many of those farmers have turned to existing temporary visas — like the H-2A visa, a seasonal agricultural visa — to staff their farms. The Trump administration moved to strip back labor protections for farmers hiring workers on the visa earlier this year, in an effort to streamline H-2A visas.
But those visas are inherently limited for year-round work, like at dairy farms.
The program is also associated with high costs and a slow-moving bureaucracy. Democrats and immigrant advocates said the administration’s move put workers at risk of abuse and exploitation. Approximately 17% of agricultural workers have an H-2A visa.
There are currently several proposed reforms floating around the Capitol.
A bipartisan bill introduced in May by Reps. Dan Newhouse and Zoe Lofgren proposes streamlining the H-2A visa process and providing visas for year-round agricultural employers.
Wisconsin Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden has proposedlegislation that would allow undocumented farmworkers to gain legal employment status, as long as they haven’t committed a crime. Both immigrants and their employers would be required to acknowledge the worker’s status and pay a fine.
“We got to understand, at this point these people are our neighbors. Our kids go to school together, and they’re part of our communities,” Van Orden said. “I don’t want these people having to hide underneath a trailer when immigration shows up.”
Van Orden’s bill has no co-sponsors.
Lawmakers formed a task force in 2023 to consider possible reforms to the H-2A visa program and improve the industry’s reliable labor shortage.
The Republican-majority House Committee on Agriculture has readied a bill that largely follows task force recommendations — which include proposals to streamline administrative paperwork, expedite application review by U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and change the wage system — to overhaul the H-2A program.
Committee chair Rep. Glenn Thompson said the bill is awaiting “technical assistance” from the Department of Labor. That final step had been delayed by shutdown furloughs, he said. The Department of Labor did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“We’re very close to introducing a very strong, I’ll call it a tripartisan bill, because that includes Republicans, Democrats and individuals from the industry,” Thompson said.
The bill draft is expected to be ready for public review by early January.
Rep. Salud Carbajal, a Democrat on the agriculture committee, however, says he hasn’t heard from his Republican colleagues or the White House on the issue.
“There’s been no communication from my colleagues on the other side and from this administration,” he said.
Republicans say the White House is engaged on the issue. Thompson told NOTUS that he’s been in “frequent discussions” with the White House and the Department of Agriculture about immigrant farmworkers.
Rep. Doug LaMalfa, who also sits on the House Agriculture Committee, said the White House is “in the mood here to engage” on farmworker visas.
“A while back, the president acknowledged in a speech that we got to up the game on having more and simpler processes for having farm workers available. I know we feel that in California with our specialty crops,” LaMalfa said.
Immigration advocates haven’t been happy with the administration’s visa policy changes thus far.
Alexandra Sossa, the chief executive officer with the Farmworker and Landscaper Advocacy Project, said that her organization is “not in favor” of the H-2A visa program, which it associates with “human labor trafficking and labor exploitation.”
And now, with the ongoing immigration raids, she says, farmworkers who are brought to the country under the visa program fear deportation, and those who are considering coming under the program are apprehensive about doing so.
“We are talking about workers who wake up at 4 a.m. in the morning and start working at 5 a.m. and end working around 9 to 10 p.m., Monday to Sunday. So that’s not easy to find, and it’s a difficult job to do. The consequences on the economy are reflected when you go to the grocery store to buy food,” Sossa said.
Democrats, meanwhile, are calling for larger immigration reform to address the dangerous working conditions that the H-2A program has led to, while also giving a bigger pathway to work.
“When people are exploited, we’ve got to crack down on that,” Rep. Jim McGovern, a Democrat on the House Committee on Agriculture, said about the concerns regarding H-2A visas. “But I just think the climate that’s been created by this administration makes it difficult for some Republicans to even want to talk about the issue.”
“I hear from farmers all the time about concerns that their labor force will disappear, or that they can’t count on workers,” McGovern said.
This story was produced and originally published by Wisconsin Watch and NOTUS, a publication from the nonprofit, nonpartisan Allbritton Journalism Institute.
When Levi Lyle was just six years old, his father was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer.
With treatment, his father survived his diagnosis. The ordeal changed how he farmed.
“It created an openness in his approach to farming to start doing things differently,” Lyle said.
His father started no-till farming when the practice was still rare in Iowa. A decade ago, when Lyle, now 47, moved back to the family farm, he and his father jumped into organic farming.
“My experiences seeing my father overcome cancer, along with the Agricultural Health Survey’s Midwest cancer statistics, which point to a rural health crisis, inspire me to farm differently,” he said.
Today, Lyle grows corn and soybeans in Keokuk County, in southeast Iowa. Lyle farms about 250 acres, with 40 acres of that organic-certified. His father farms an additional 250 acres.
Lyle said introducing cover crops into his practice was a “no-brainer.”
Cattle graze on cover crops on a field at the Rodale Institute in Marion, Iowa, on Oct. 3, 2025. In states along the Mississippi River, Iowa had the most acreage with cover crops in 2022, but Wisconsin had the highest percentage of its cropland using cover crops. (Jim Slosiarek / The Gazette)
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, cover crops are usually grasses or legumes that are planted between cash crop seasons to provide soil cover and improve soil health. Cover crops can reduce erosion and compaction, improve soil’s ability to hold water, reduce nutrient runoff, suppress weeds, as well as provide other services.
Despite being an advocate for cover crops, Lyle said the practice does present challenges.
“The initial challenge is that there is more labor involved,” Lyle said. Cover crops “do not pay for themselves in the short run.”
In Iowa specifically, the use of cover crops has expanded significantly in recent years, growing from 1.3 million acres in 2022 to 3.8 million acres in 2024.
The conservation practice is promoted by the state through cost share incentives. It’s an effort by the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship to reduce the nutrients that go into local waters, make their way into the Mississippi River and ultimately contribute to the Gulf Dead Zone, an annually reoccurring area of reduced oxygen in the Gulf of Mexico.
According to the Iowa Nutrient Reduction Strategy, an initiative aimed at reducing nitrogen and phosphorus runoff into Iowa’s waterways, to achieve 45% nutrient reduction will require about 14 million additional acres of cover crops to be planted.
But a study published in July 2025 in the Society & Natural Resources Journal found that while the number of acres being planted with cover crops has grown, many farmers abandon the practice after one year.
“This study shows that adoption is not a one-time decision — it’s a dynamic process influenced by a range of factors,” co-author Suraj Upadhaya, assistant professor of sustainable systems at Kentucky State University, said in a news release about the study.
Why do farmers abandon cover crops?
Chris Morris, a postdoctoral research associate at Iowa State University, was part of a research team that interviewed more than 3,000 Iowa farmers between 2015 and 2019.
The survey showed that nearly 20% of the farmers who reported planting cover crops on their land the first year had ceased using them the following year.
However, the survey found that most of those farmers (15%) would be open to resuming the practice in the future.
Only about 4% of the farmers who participated in the survey said they have no intention of using cover crops again.
“What we found was a whole lot more shifting back and forth than we anticipated,” J. Arbuckle, professor of rural sociology at ISU, said.
Nationwide, in 2022, nearly 18 million acres, or 4.7% of total U.S. cropland, had cover crops, up 17% from 2017.
Cover crop use is most common in the eastern U.S. In states along the Mississippi River, Iowa had the most acreage with cover crops in 2022, but Wisconsin had the highest percentage of its cropland using cover crops, at nearly 8%. All 10 states saw an increase in cover crop usage from 2012 to 2022, though some states, like Tennessee and Kentucky, saw a drop in cover crop use from 2017 to 2022.
Experts say cover crops present challenges to farmers that can act as barriers to permanent adoption.
Anna Morrow, senior program manager with the Midwest Cover Crops Council, said one hurdle is that cover crop planting overlaps with the busy harvest season.
“Cover crops are a practice where a lot of the labor is right at a peak labor time in our season, right? So obviously (farmers) have to prioritize the cash crop so that they get paid,” Morrow said.
“It’s complicated because a lot of farmers are doing the cover crops in the winter, so between getting the current crop harvested, planting the cover crop, getting that terminated before the next crop, if this cover crop is not going to work in that schedule, it’s going to be abandoned,” Morris said.
Clover is part of a mix of plants that make up a cover crop on a field at the Rodale Institute in Marion, Iowa, on Oct. 3, 2025. (Jim Slosiarek / The Gazette)
Morris said barriers beyond timing abound, too, like the cost of purchasing and planting cover crops, balancing the cover crops with other farm work, and challenges that come with farming on rented land.
“A lot of farmers are in really short-term leases, and a lot of farmers feel like landlords aren’t interested in investing in conservation practices on rented land because they may or may not be farming that land one or two or three years from now,” Arbuckle said.
In Lyle’s case, he owns the 40 acres he uses for organic farming, but he and his father lease the rest of their land. They plant cover crops on both the land they own and rent.
Lyle said for him it’s “economically justifiable” to plant cover crops on his leased land because he expects a “reduction in number of field passes, reduced herbicides and reduced fertilizer use due to the nutrient scavenging capacity of cover crops.”
To address cost barriers and encourage the use of cover crops, various federal and state programs offer cost-share incentives. Lyle said this year he has been awarded cover crop funding for 150 acres, getting paid $10 per acre. On average, it costs producers about $60 per acre to pay for cover crops.
Morris said these programs are helpful, but farmers told him they often don’t pay enough, require complicated, time-sucking paperwork and only last one to three years.
But cover crops are a long game, Morris said. While use of cover crops can reduce the need for fertilizer, increase soil health and lead to better productivity, he said those benefits can be difficult to measure and can take years to materialize.
“It’s hard for farmers to justify that high economic cost of cover crops in any given year if there’s not going to be an immediate payoff. Most of these farmers are making marginal profits in any given year, if any, and some are at a net loss. So, there’s a huge weight on farmers’ shoulders of trying to keep the farm going, especially if it’s a farm that’s been in their families for generations,” Morris said. “Anything that could potentially put them out of business is going to seem like a threat.”
Finding new solutions
Cover crops are generally not harvested; rather, their benefits come from simply being on the land. At the end of their life they’re terminated using herbicides or manual methods, like mowing, and tilled into the soil or left atop it as mulch.
But the Forever Green Initiative, which is housed at the University of Minnesota, works to increase cover crop adoption in Minnesota by developing varieties that can improve soil health and also be harvested for sale.
“Agricultural science has not focused on this until very recently, so there are very few options for farmers to do that,” said Mitch Hunter, co-director of the Forever Green Initiative. “We’re working on over 15 different species, and they’re all aimed at filling that niche of a harvestable over winter crop that is winter hardy in the Upper Midwest that can fit into existing crop rotations or become part of a more diverse rotation and as a market.”
He said some commercial and harvestable cover crops have included winter camelina and the perennial grain Kernza, a cousin to annual wheat. He said those crops are “on the cusp of being commercial.” Commercialized cover crops also include alfalfa, winter barley and winter durum.
“The whole point is to fill that gap,” Hunter said.
Pivoting to cover crops that can be harvested and sold is a “natural progression” for many farmers, Morrow said.
“If they start to try cover crops, and they say, ‘Hey, this is working, and I’m seeing benefits.’ And then they’ll say, ‘Well, why can’t I do a winter annual crop and get some cash from this?’” Morrow said. “The Midwest (is) pretty focused on corn and soybeans, but I think there’s some growing interest in winter, annual cash crops.”
Meanwhile, the overall number of acres invested in cover crop practices has been increasing in recent years, even with some disadoption.
Newly sprouted rye plants grow in rows at the Rodale Institute Midwest Organic Center in Marion, Iowa, on Jan. 17, 2023. (Savannah Blake / The Gazette)
“This study really reflects that farming is a year-to-year business,” said Sean Stokes, research director at the Rodale Institute Midwest Organic Center in Marion, Iowa. “A farmer might only plant a cover crop, like cereal rye, before soybeans, and then when they go to corn the next year, they might not plant that again. But then when they go back to soybeans, they might use cover crops again.”
“Every farmer and every farm is unique, and they’re all going to have different motivations for what’s driving their cover crop adoption,” he said.
Stokes said these motivations could include concerns over water quality or improving soil health.
“For a lot of farmers, it’s a business decision,” Stokes said. “Are they going to see more money per acre in the following years when using cover crops or are they going to lose money? That’s where there is some risk.”
For Lyle, it’s a risk work taking.
“Every acre in the Midwest would benefit from being cover cropped,” Lyle said.
An average 15-pound turkey could cost around $30 this Thanksgiving, according to an analysis from Purdue University. That’s a 75 percent price increase since October 2024—a reversal from the relatively low prices of previous years.
Wisconsin lacks standards or health advisory limits for more than half of pesticide-related chemicals analyzed in the state, and there are currently no state surface water standards for pesticides.
A sign explaining delays in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program during the government shutdown is displayed at a Sprouts grocery store in Bountiful, Utah, on Wednesday, Nov. 12, 2025. (McKenzie Romero/Utah News Dispatch)
The Trump administration will release full benefits for most participants in the nation’s major federal nutrition program within 24 hours of the reopening of the federal government, a U.S. Department of Agriculture spokesperson said Wednesday.
Many of the roughly 42 million Americans who rely on USDA’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, to help afford groceries have faced uncertainty for weeks about their November benefits, which President Donald Trump and other top administration officials said could not be paid while the government was shut down.
A USDA spokesperson answered an afternoon email from States Newsroom inquiring about when benefits would restart with a single sentence:
“Upon the government reopening, within 24 hours for most States,” the spokesperson wrote.
While the federal government funds SNAP benefits, states are responsible for their administration, meaning an array of different processes across the country.
The U.S. House was set to vote Wednesday evening to clear a bill to reopen the government after a record 43-day shutdown, after the Senate acted earlier this week. Trump is expected to sign it into law as early as Wednesday night.
The enactment of the bill — and the subsequent renewal of federal payments — would resolve a dizzying weekslong saga over SNAP that placed the roughly 1 in 8 Americans who use the program in the middle of a political and legal battle playing out across every level of the federal judiciary.
Since the shutdown began Oct. 1, the USDA has reversed its own position, the U.S. Supreme Court paused lower court orders and Trump himself expressed contradicting views.
In the most recent chapter, USDA said it would authorize states to pay 65% of benefits for November, and the Supreme Court paused until Thursday night lower court orders compelling full payments.
The department had previously told a Rhode Island federal court it could take weeks or even months for beneficiaries to receive the partial allotments and the administration continued to fight rulings to immediately release full funding, even as the shutdown crept toward its conclusion.
Temperatures remained into the 80s well in the fall this year in parts of the Midwest. Agrivoltaics offers a respite to extreme heat and land access for new farmers.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Oct. 9, 2024. (Photo by Jane Norman/States Newsroom)
The U.S. Supreme Court has extended through Thursday a pause on lower courts’ orders that the Trump administration authorize a full month of benefits for a food assistance program that 1 in 8 Americans use to buy groceries.
A brief, unsigned order published Tuesday evening also said the full court would decide on the administration’s request to block court orders that the U.S. Department of Agriculture release full November benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP.
The case was presented to Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who said she would have dismissed the case and denied the request for an administrative stay. Jackson was appointed to the high court by President Joe Biden.
The order adds another wrinkle to a case that was already the object of a weekslong tug-of-war over how the program should operate during the government shutdown.
The shutdown could end before the stay expires. The U.S. Senate passed a bill Monday to reopen the government, and the House is expected to pass it Wednesday. President Donald Trump has said he supports the measure and will likely sign it before the end of the day Thursday.
Trump and administration officials have maintained they were not authorized to release November SNAP benefits during the shutdown.
A Rhode Island federal judge ordered the USDA on Thursday to release full benefits for November. The department sent states a memo authorizing those payments Friday morning, then appealed to the Supreme Court on Friday evening to have the district court’s order overturned.
At the same time, the 1st U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the lower court’s order.
In the face of often contradicting administrative guidance and court orders, some states began processing full benefits for November, while others have yet to release them.
Residents voiced concerns about Gilbert Farms’ expansion plan on Wednesday, during a Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources hearing over a Wisconsin Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit for the farm. The hearing was held to gather feedback before the agency decides whether to approve the farm’s permit.
A sign in a convenience store along Barlowe Road in Hyattsville, Maryland, on Oct. 28, 2025, advertises that it accepts SNAP benefits. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
This report has been updated.
A federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration Thursday to pay roughly $9 billion for a full month of nutrition assistance benefits by the next day.
Chief Judge John J. McConnell Jr., who was appointed by Democratic former President Barack Obama, said the administration blew its chance to choose to pay only partial benefits for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, when it failed to release funds by a Wednesday deadline.
He said a social media post by President Donald Trump showed the president sought to use hunger for political leverage during the government shutdown, which stretched into day 37 on Thursday.
Earlier, in a Friday oral order that he expanded in a Saturday written order, McConnell had said the government must either pay full benefits by Monday or partial benefits from a contingency fund by Wednesday.
The government did neither, he said Thursday.
The administration had argued it was impossible to pay the benefits, which go to 42 million Americans, within a few days, saying that the USDA had never calculated partial benefits and that coordinating new payments for SNAP, a federally funded program administered by the states, was difficult.
The administration quickly appealed the ruling to the 1st Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals.
“Today is a major victory for 42 million people in America. The court could not be more clear – the Trump-Vance administration must stop playing politics with people’s lives by delaying SNAP payments they are obligated to issue,” said Skye Perryman, President and CEO of Democracy Forward, co-counsel for the coalition challenging the administration.
‘USDA cannot now cry’
But McConnell said the department created the problem, in part by failing to prepare for it far earlier. USDA was obligated to spend from a contingency fund to ensure SNAP benefits flowed into November uninterrupted, he said.
“USDA did not do so,” he said. “Even when Nov. 1 came, USDA refused to use the congressionally mandated contingency funds. USDA cannot now cry that it cannot get timely payments to beneficiaries for weeks or months because states are not prepared to make partial payments.
“USDA arbitrarily and capriciously created this problem by ignoring the congressionally mandated contingency funds and failing to timely notify the states.”
McConnell also pointed to Trump’s post on Truth Social on Tuesday that indicated he would not authorize payments consistent with the judge’s order until Democrats agreed to his terms to end the government shutdown.
“The day before the compliance was ordered, the president stated his intent to defy the court order when he said, ‘SNAP payments will be given only when the government opens,’” McConnell said Thursday.
Child nutrition funding suggested
The USDA had said it would pay only partial November benefits from a contingency fund holding about $4.5 billion, rather than tap into other money at its disposal, including a $23 billion fund for child nutrition programs.
The coalition of cities and nonprofit organizations that sued to force the administration to pay SNAP benefits for November has argued the court should force USDA to pay full benefits for November.
In addition to the missed Wednesday deadline, the move violated a fundamental administrative law requiring federal agencies not to make arbitrary and capricious decisions, Kristin Bateman of the Democracy Forward Foundation, which is representing the groups, said Thursday.
The child nutrition program would not need its billions of dollars until June, she said, meaning that transferring funds for SNAP would only actually hurt the child nutrition program if the shutdown persists until then.
“A decision on such a highly unlikely set of events is not reasoned decision-making,” Bateman said. “It’s particularly unreasonable because the defendants have not explained why they would choose to let 42 million Americans, including 16 million children, go hungry now in order to guard against the extreme outside chance that come June, there won’t be enough money to fund child nutrition programs.”
McConnell agreed that invoking the child nutrition fund was “entirely pretextual,” which was demonstrated in part by Trump’s post and other statements by administration officials.
“The defendants’ stated desire to conserve funding for the child nutrition programs is entirely pretextual, given the numerous statements made in recent weeks by the president and his administration officials who admit to withholding full SNAP benefits for political reasons,” he said.
McConnell also noted that the case should be resolved as soon as possible to help provide food to hungry people or “needless suffering will occur.”
‘A state problem’
Tyler Becker, who argued on behalf of the USDA, said the department had done its part by making available to states a table showing how they should allocate partial November benefits for households of differing circumstances.
SNAP is a complex program, requiring coordination between the federal government and all 50 states, each of which has a different system for distributing benefits.
“The government did make the payments, is making the payments to the states,” he said. “That’s all the government does in the SNAP program.”
He added that the government had shown earlier in the case some of the administrative difficulties of paying partial benefits.
In a separate case in Massachusetts federal court, some states said they could process the benefits immediately, while others cannot.
“This is a state problem,” he said.
But McConnell cut him off shortly after, saying the federal government was responsible for ensuring people got their SNAP benefits.
“The problem that the government identified needed to be resolved one way or the other by Wednesday,” he said. “And if it wasn’t resolved by Wednesday, then you had to make the full payments, because that’s the only way we could get money to people immediately and alleviate the irreparable harm, whether you could or couldn’t do anything about that.”
In a Sept. 30 contingency plan about how to proceed during a government shutdown, the USDA itself said it would pay for continuing benefits through the contingency fund, which at the time held $6 billion. The administration later reversed that plan and said it could not tap the contingency fund.
In the Massachusetts case, which was brought by 25 Democratic states and the District of Columbia, the states argued Thursday that confusion stemming from a miscalculation the USDA made in determining November partial benefits was a reason to force the administration to pay for a full month.
USDA corrects miscalculation
The hearing followed a late Wednesday night filing from the USDA correcting an error it made in calculating the amounts beneficiaries would receive under its plan for partial payments.
The department said it will reduce the largest monthly food assistance payments by about 35% in November, down from a 50% cut the department initially estimated.
USDA miscalculated how to adjust benefit payments for SNAP to account for a lack of full funding during the government shutdown, a department official said in a filing to the U.S. District Court for Rhode Island.
The formula the government initially used and sent to states Tuesday would have resulted in about a 50% cut to the maximum monthly benefits, and left some households without benefits.
SNAP pays benefits on a sliding scale depending on the size of a household, the household’s income and other expenses such as housing. By cutting the maximum benefit by one-half, the department would have spent about $3 billion from a SNAP contingency fund instead of the full $4.65 billion in the fund, which is what the court ordered it to spend.
The mixup created confusion for state administrators, the states in the Massachusetts litigation said.
“The fact they have been asked to suddenly shift on a dime yet again as a result of these entirely new tables, causing further chaos and delay, underscores that USDA’s approach here is untenable and unlawful,” the states wrote in a Thursday brief.
The error was first reported to McConnell by the coalition of cities and nonprofit organizations that sued to force the government to pay SNAP benefits this month.
Think tank discovers discrepancy
An analysis submitted by Sharon Parrott, a former White House budget officer who now leads the left-leaning think tank Center for Budget and Policy Priorities, showed that the table the department submitted to the court and sent to states on Tuesday would fall short of the court’s order to spend the entire contingency fund.
The groups said the department’s error was another reason the court should compel the government to transfer funds to pay out full benefits for November.
“Defendants’ approach means that only around $3 billion—out of the $4.65 billion Defendants have said is available—will be spent on SNAP benefits in November, leaving more than $1.5 billion in contingency funds unspent,” they wrote in a Wednesday brief. “Defendants opted for partial (and delayed) SNAP payments, but even then, did not manage to do that correctly.”
The department said in its filing later Wednesday that it independently discovered its miscalculation and worked to fix it before Parrott’s declaration hit the court docket.
“Defendants realized this error and worked to issue new guidance and tables as soon as it was discovered, not in response to Plaintiffs’ notice filed earlier this evening,” USDA’s brief said.
Advocates who urged the Oregon legislature to increase child care funding in January 2024 hung onesies and other children’s clothes on a tent outside the Capitol in Salem. Officials in Oregon and other states are relying on their own funds to keep Head Start programs afloat during the federal government shutdown. (Photo by Julia Shumway/Oregon Capital Chronicle)
With some early childhood education centers already closing their doors because of the federal government shutdown, local leaders are scrambling to find money to keep Head Start programs available to some of the country’s most vulnerable children.
Head Start programs, which serve more than 700,000 low-income children across the country, are almost entirely federally funded. In addition to free preschool, centers provide health screenings, parent resources and meals for children up to 5 years old. But the record-long government shutdown has forced child care centers across the country to close as funding is exhausted.
The closures are creating stark choices for some of the most vulnerable families in society. Migrant farmworkers, for example, who are more likely to be without health insurance and tend not to have any vacation time, are faced with the prospect of missing work, and a paycheck, to care for their children. A network of Head Start programs for migrant farmworkers’ children that operates in states across the South closed its sites on Friday.
To keep Head Start programs operating in her state, Massachusetts Democratic Gov. Maura Healey announced plans to advance $20 million in additional funding for the program. Those grant funds were previously approved to improve and expand the Massachusetts program, which gets about 80% of its funding from the federal government.
In a statement last week, Healey said the state was doing everything it could to support those programs, “but we don’t have the resources to make up for what the federal government owes.”
In Atlanta, private funders made an $8 million loan to keep Georgia’s largest Head Start providers afloat for the coming weeks.
Frank Fernandez, the president and CEO of Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta, told CBS News that the measure was only a temporary solution: “Our elected officials must take action to end this shutdown and ensure the long-term sustainability of this critical program,” Fernandez said.
In Washington state, some school systems that operate Head Start programs are using their own funds to keep kids in classrooms, the Seattle Times reported. Still, other operations are cutting back staff and services to make do.
In neighboring Oregon, state officials are working out details of a 60-day deal to use existing funds to keep Head Start going, the Oregon Capital Chronicle reported. State officials said Head Start providers must have experienced a delay in federal funds and the state assistance will not exceed the total amount of money awarded to a program by Oregon annually.
“It’s important to note that this is not a loan to Head Start programs and is not ‘backfilling,’” Kate Gonsalves, a spokesperson for the state’s early learning department said in a statement. “These are dual-funded programs so the state dollars are not replacing federal funds but can be drawn down earlier in the cycle.”
Some sites already shuttered
Head Start sites in 18 states have already closed their doors, according to the First Five Years Fund, a nonprofit advocating for quality child care and early childhood education.
The National Head Start Association, a nonprofit representing Head Start programs, said full or partial closures have affected 8,000 children. Nationwide, programs serving 65,000 children hadn’t received their federal funds as of Saturday, according to the group.
In Ohio, seven Head Start programs have exhausted their federal funds. Two have already closed, affecting 600 children and 150 employees. In the coming weeks, the Ohio Head Start Association says the other five will be forced to close their doors, affecting nearly 3,700 Ohio kids.
“Every day the shutdown continues, Ohio children and families are paying the price,” Julie Stone, Executive Director of the association said in a statement. “Head Start isn’t a political issue — it’s a lifeline for working families.”
Farmworkers’ children
Agricultural farmworkers, many of whom travel for seasonal work, have been hit particularly hard.
East Coast Migrant Head Start Project, which runs 43 Head Start centers in multiple states, suspended services on Friday. Around 1,200 children of agricultural farmworkers are without services now, but the number of children served fluctuates by season. The network is funded to serve 3,000 children of farmworkers across Alabama, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and Virginia, and partners with other groups in a few other states.
In Florida, that means more than 800 children of agricultural workers are going without care due to the lapse in federal funding, said John Menditto, chief legal officer of East Coast Migrant Head Start Project. The group has also had to furlough its staff.
About 60% of farmworkers are American citizens or are in the country legally. Head Start is open to all children, regardless of their parents’ immigration status.
In rural North Florida, roughly 80 children have been without early education, language and disability therapies, said Leannys Mendoza Gutierrez, the campus director for the migrant Head Start program in rural Jennings, Florida, which cares for babies 6 weeks old to kids up to 5 years old.
“[Farmworkers] are putting food on our tables, for all of us,” she said. “However, they are not so far receiving services due to this situation that we don’t know when it’s going to end.”
Migrant farmworker families in Gutierrez’s program work in North Florida and South Georgia on watermelon, cucumber, cabbage, pepper, tomato, strawberry and pine straw farms.
Many parents have been forced to skip work and lose pay because they have been unable to find child care alternatives, Gutierrez said. She added that her program steps in to cover pediatrician bills for families that don’t have health insurance. The shutdown has prevented her program from offering such assistance, too, she said.
Many farmworkers don’t have health insurance and already struggle with poverty, making staying home from work difficult. Many also receive food aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), which has also been affected by the shutdown.
“The shutdown just accentuates everything,” said Amy Liebman of the Migrant Clinicians Network, which works with clinics across the nation that serve migrant workers and their families. “Everyone’s concerned, they’re worried about the families they serve.”
Two other programs, one serving kids in the capital area of Tallahassee and another, Redlands Christian Migrant Association, which serves about 1,700 kids of agricultural workers in Florida, have also suspended services, according to the National Head Start Association.
This story was originally produced by Stateline, which is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network which includes Wisconsin Examiner, and is supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity.
One Wisconsin resident reached out to WHYsconsin with a crop-related mystery that's been puzzling her ever since she was a child. To get to the root of her question, WPR hopped in the car with a plant expert.
Volunteers with the Capital Area Food Bank distribute items to furloughed federal workers in partnership with No Limits Outreach Ministries in Hyattsville, Maryland, on Oct. 28, 2025. (Photo by Ashley Murray/States Newsroom)
This report has been updated.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate Tuesday failed for the 14th time to advance a stopgap spending bill to fund the government, as the ongoing shutdown hit 35 days and is now tied with the shutdown of 2018-2019 as the longest ever.
The 54-44 vote was nearly identical to the previous 13 votes, as Republicans and Democrats remained unwilling to change positions. The legislation extending funding to Nov. 21 needed at least 60 votes to advance, per the Senate’s legislative filibuster.
Even though the upper chamber has been unable to pass a stopgap spending measure for more than a month, Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., told reporters Tuesday that he believes senators are “making progress.”
He floated keeping the Senate in session next week. The chamber is scheduled to be in recess for the Veterans Day holiday.
“We’ll think through that as the week progresses, but I guess my hope would be we’ll make some progress,” he said.
Thune added that any stopgap spending bill will need to be extended past Nov. 21, “because we’re almost up against the November deadline right now.”
Duffy warns of flight ‘chaos’ due to staff shortages
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy warned during a Tuesday press conference at the Department of Transportation that if the government shutdown continues into next week, it would lead to “chaos” and certain airspace would need to be closed due to a shortage of air traffic controllers who have continued to work amid the shutdown.
House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., said at a separate press conference at the Capitol that he would bring the House back to vote on a stopgap spending measure if the Senate extends the funding date.
U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, speaks at a press conference Nov. 4, 2025, at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. He was joined by, from left, House GOP Conference Chair Lisa McClain of Michigan, House Majority Whip Tom Emmer of Minnesota, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, House Majority Leader Steve Scalise of Louisiana and House Education and Workforce Committee Chair Tim Walberg of Michigan. (Photo by Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom)
“If the Senate passes something, of course we’ll come back,” Johnson said. “We’re running out of (the) clock.”
Johnson said he is “not a fan” of extending the bill to December and would prefer a January deadline.
He said extending a stopgap funding bill “into January makes sense, but we got to, obviously, build consensus around that.”
Senators at odds
On Tuesday’s Senate vote, Nevada Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto and Pennsylvania Sen. John Fetterman, both Democrats, and Maine independent Sen. Angus King voted with Republicans to advance the legislation. Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul voted no.
Senate Democrats have refused to support the House-passed GOP measure over concerns about the expiration of health care tax subsidies. As open enrollment begins, people who buy their health insurance through the Affordable Care Act Marketplace are seeing a drastic spike in premium costs.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., left, accompanied by Sen. Cory Booker, D-N.J., points to a poster depicting rising medical costs if Congress allows the Affordable Care Act tax credits to expire, at the U.S. Capitol on Oct. 15, 2025. (Photo by Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Republicans have maintained that any negotiations on health care must occur after Democrats agree to fund the government.
The Trump administration has also tried to pressure Democrats to accept the House stopgap spending measure by instructing the U.S. Department of Agriculture to not tap into its contingency fund to provide critical food assistance to 42 million Americans.
SNAP fight
Two federal courts have found the Trump administration acted unlawfully in holding back those benefits, and on Monday USDA announced it would partially release Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, benefits.
However, President Donald Trump Tuesday morning wrote on his social media platform that SNAP benefits would only be released when Democrats vote to reopen the government, a move that would likely violate the two court orders.
“SNAP BENEFITS, which increased by Billions and Billions of Dollars (MANY FOLD!) during Crooked Joe Biden’s disastrous term in office (Due to the fact that they were haphazardly ‘handed’ to anyone for the asking, as opposed to just those in need, which is the purpose of SNAP!), will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!,” he wrote.
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said during a Tuesday briefing that the president’s social media post did not refer to the court order, but was referring to future SNAP payments.
“The president doesn’t want to tap into this (contingency) fund in the future and that’s what he was referring to,” she said.
‘Republican health care crisis’
House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries of New York stood firm in his party’s demands over extending health care tax credits in order to back a stopgap spending bill during a Tuesday press conference at the Capitol.
“We want to reopen the government — we want to find a bipartisan path forward toward enacting a spending agreement that actually makes life better for the American people, that lowers costs for the American people, as opposed to the Trump economy where things are getting more expensive by the day,” Jeffries said.
“And, of course, we have to decisively address the Republican health care crisis that is crushing the American people all across the land.”
He noted that Republicans’ refusal to extend the enhanced Affordable Care Act tax credits would result in “tens of millions of Americans experiencing dramatically increased premiums, co-pays and deductibles.”
An analysis by KFF shows that those enrollees in the Affordable Care Act marketplace who currently receive a tax credit are likely to see their monthly premium payments more than double by about 114% on average.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said the spike in health care premiums will cause some people to choose to forgo health care insurance.
“It’s a five-alarm health care emergency,” Schumer said.
Johnson’s January CR rationale
Meanwhile, Johnson said at his press conference that “a lot of people around here have PTSD about Christmas omnibus spending bills,” when speaking out against a December extension of the stopgap spending bill.
GOP leaders have sought to do away with the practice of bundling at the end of the year the final versions of the dozen annual government funding bills into what’s known as an omnibus package.
“We don’t want to do that. It gets too close, and we don’t want to have that risk,” Johnson said. “We’re not doing that.”
However, it’s unclear how long the new stopgap spending bill will extend. Thune, during a Tuesday press conference, said a year-long continuing resolution, or CR, was not on the table.
“There’s a conversation around what that next deadline would be,” Thune said, adding that there is not an agreement yet.
A store displays a sign accepting Electronic Benefits Transfer, or EBT, cards for Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program purchases for groceries on Oct. 30, 2025 in New York City. (Photo by Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
President Donald Trump backtracked Tuesday on a pledge by his administration in court filings to partially fund November food assistance during the government shutdown, posting on social media that benefits “will be given only when the Radical Left Democrats open up government, which they can easily do, and not before!”
White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt said later Tuesday that Trump was referring to future uses of a food assistance contingency fund and that the administration was complying with the court order, though that description did not match Trump’s post.
Trump’s declaration appeared to have little effect on the federal court case over food aid. The U.S. Department of Agriculture wrote in a court filing late Tuesday it would continue with a plan to provide partial November payments.
The benefits usually are provided to some 42 million Americans and, at the moment, are shut off pending the partial payments.
Before Trump’s post Tuesday, a coalition of cities and nonprofits suing the USDA said the delayed partial payments were not enough.
The coalition that filed suit, led by the Rhode Island State Council of Churches, just prior to Trump’s social media post Tuesday asked a Rhode Island federal court to compel the government to pay full benefits.
The USDA’s promise Monday that it would provide partial payments to households who use the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, from a roughly $4.5 billion contingency fund, was an insufficient response to a court order, the groups said.
USDA officials said Monday they could not complete partial payments for November benefits by Chief District Court Judge John J. McConnell Jr.’s deadline of Wednesday, and warned it could take several months for beneficiaries to receive the funding because of the administrative difficulties of recalculating and processing partial benefits.
The groups suing said Tuesday that if paying partial benefits created such delays, McConnell should force the government to pay full benefits instead.
“If Defendants cannot comply with the Court’s command to expeditiously resolve the hurdles to making ‘timely’ partial payments, then that is a problem of their own making,” the groups wrote.
“They chose—unlawfully and contrary to past agency precedent and guidance—to withhold all funding for SNAP,” they continued. “That this unlawful decision may have made it impossible for them to clear the administrative hurdles now is no excuse. They still have a straightforward path to meeting the directives in the Court’s order.”
The department could legally and relatively easily tap into a separate child nutrition program account that holds $23 billion, the groups said. That would more than cover the $9 billion needed for a month of SNAP benefits, they said.
McConnell ordered the government to respond to the challengers’ motion, and set a hearing on the issue for Thursday afternoon.
Trump changes course
Within an hour of the groups’ filing, Trump, who had said he was eager to restore SNAP benefits, responded on social media with his defiant message that he would only release any SNAP funding once Democrats in Congress agreed to end the government shutdown that began Oct. 1.
Trump had said Friday he told government lawyers to seek clarification on how the government could legally send out benefits during the shutdown, adding he did not want Americans to go hungry.
“If we are given the appropriate legal direction by the Court, it will BE MY HONOR to provide the funding,” he wrote Oct. 31, following an oral order by McConnell.
McConnell issued a written order the next day that benefits be provided either in full by Monday or partially by Wednesday.
The USDA responded Monday that it would provide partial benefits from the contingency fund that held about half of a month’s worth of benefits, but that the process could take weeks or even months for states to recalibrate the amount each beneficiary would receive and to process those payments.
Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins echoed that commitment just before the challengers submitted their motion to compel full payments.
“This morning, @USDA sent SNAP guidance to States,” Rollins wrote on X. “My team stands by to offer immediate technical assistance. This will be a cumbersome process, including revised eligibility systems, State notification procedures, and ultimately, delayed benefits for weeks, but we will help States navigate those challenges.”
Spokespeople for the USDA did not return messages seeking an explanation for the course change Tuesday morning.
At the White House press briefing Tuesday afternoon, Leavitt said she had just spoken with Trump and sought to clarify his statement.
“We are digging into a contingency fund,” she said. “The president doesn’t want to tap into this fund in the future and that’s what he was referring to.”
Skye Perryman, the president and CEO of Democracy Forward, an advocacy group representing the groups challenging the administration, said in a Tuesday post to social media that Trump’s post was “immoral” and that the group would make use of it.
“See you in court,” Perryman said.
Shutdown lingers
The dispute over SNAP benefits stems from the lapse in government funding that began when Congress failed to appropriate money for federal programs by the start of the fiscal year on Oct. 1.
The USDA said in a plan published just ahead of the shutdown — and since deleted — that it would use the contingency fund, which then held $6 billion, to cover SNAP benefits if needed.
But the department reversed itself within weeks, telling states in an Oct. 10 letter that benefits would not be paid in November if the government remained shut down on the first of the month.
Members of each party have blamed the other for the lack of SNAP benefits.
Democrats have demanded the administration reshuffle funds to cover the program, as it has with other federal funding during the shutdown, while Republicans have called on Democrats to approve a stopgap spending bill to reopen the government at fiscal 2025 spending levels.
Democrats in Congress have blocked Republicans’ “clean” continuing resolution to reopen the government in a bid to force negotiations on expiring tax credits for people who buy insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace.
As of Tuesday, the parties showed little sign of softening their positions.
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