A federal judge is blocking, in 17 states, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris’s administration from imposing a new rule that gives collective bargaining rights to foreign farm workers while American farm workers are excluded.
“The Biden-Harris administration has taken an America Last position,” Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach (R), who is leading the multi-state lawsuit against the rule, said in a statement:
In this case, they were trying to give alien ag workers rights that Americans do not have. That’s why Kansas took the lead in filing this lawsuit. The rule of law has prevailed. [Emphasis added]
In September 2023, the Labor Department announced a federal rule that would dramatically change the H-2A visa program, which allows United States farms to import foreign workers to take American agricultural jobs.
As part of the rule, finalized in April 2024, foreign H-2A visa workers would get collective bargaining rights not afforded to American farm workers.
In June, Kobach brought a lawsuit — joined by 16 other state attorneys general — asking a federal judge in Georgia to block the Biden-Harris administration from imposing the rule. On Monday, U.S. District Judge Lisa Godbey Wood granted a preliminary injunction to prevent the rule from taking effect in the 17 states that sued the administration.
“The issue before the Court is whether the Final Rule creates a right not previously bestowed by Congress. The Court finds it does so,” Wood writes:
Regardless of the terminology used in the Final Rule … the Final Rule provides for agricultural workers’ right to participate in concerted activity to further their interests. That is a right that Congress has not created by statute. And Defendants have not provided any source indicating that Congress intended to create such a right. [Emphasis added]
…
Based on the findings of fact and conclusions of law stated herein, the Court GRANTS Plaintiffs’ motion for a preliminary injunction. Accordingly, the Court ORDERS that Defendants are ENJOINED, during the pendency of this action or until further Order of the Court, from enforcing the Final Rule, Improving Protections for Workers in Temporary Agricultural Employment in the United States within Georgia, Kansas, South Carolina, Arkansas, Florida, Idaho, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia, and against Miles Berry Farm and Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association. [Emphasis added]
As Breitbart News has chronicled for years, the H-2A visa program is often used to replace Americans and preserve the low cost of agricultural labor.
In 1997, more than 16,000 foreign H-2A visa workers were imported to take American agriculture jobs. The latest data from Fiscal Year 2022 shows that U.S. farms imported nearly 300,000 foreign H-2A visa workers to fill American jobs.
The lawsuit is Kansas v. U.S. Department of Labor, No. 2:24-cv-00076 for the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia.
John Binder is a reporter for Breitbart News. Email him at jbinder@breitbart.com. Follow him on Twitter here.