FORT BRANCH — Steve Obert felt deep concern in June watching reports of ICE agents raiding a New Mexico diary farm. Officers arrested 11 immigrant workers who, authorities say, misused documents such as counterfeit green cards.
With half its staff gone, the farm scrambled to milk and care for the cows, threatening the survival of both the operation and the animals.
For Obert, the raid hit home. His family-run dairy farm in Gibson County employs well-trained immigrants to manage feed supplies, run the parlor and treat sick animals. Employees milk about 1,200 cows that produce 10,000 gallons of milk a day.
“It's important for people to realize that there is a huge impact that happens when these raids take place,” Obert said. “It has a massive impact on the farm’s viability when we don't have enough staff.”
‘IT’S BEEN JARRING’
That concern is growing among Hoosier businesses as ICE raids ramp up at factories, restaurants, farms, construction sites and other places of employment around the nation.
ICE has yet to conduct a major enforcement operation at an Indiana company, but watching arrests and raids in other parts of the nation has rattled many Hoosier employers and foreign workers, explained Jenifer Brown, an Indianapolis-based immigration attorney.
“I think the concern goes up exponentially every time there's a new story that comes out,” she said.
Following President Donald Trump’s promises to launch the largest mass deportation in U.S. history, Obert conducted an internal audit to ensure all the paperwork and documents for his immigrant workers are properly filed and in good standing.
Still, some employees fear having the correct documents isn’t enough to avoid an ICE arrest, according to Obert, who serves as the executive director of the Indiana Dairy Producers.
“I've had dairy producers across Indiana tell me that they've had workers come to them and ask, ‘Would you take care of my children if something happens to me?’” he said.
The looming threat of ICE enforcement has led some companies to provide internal training for front-desk workers on how to respond to federal agents who might come in, Brown said.
Indiana construction companies are also receiving updated guidance on how to handle an ICE raid or enforcement officers coming to a work site, noted Rick Wajda, CEO of the Indiana Builders Association.
The national association this year put out a new document called “When ICE Comes Calling” in response to members’ concerns about job site raids, where even legal immigrants are sometimes detained.
“Obviously, that can make folks that are here legally concerned,” Wajda said. “It would make anybody concerned.”
Brown said many Indiana companies are feeling added stress as they try to minimize potential disruptions to their businesses while also balancing the “very reasonable” fears of their employees.
“I think it's been jarring for employers to try to stay focused on these compliance measures,” she said.
LOOMING WORKER SHORTAGE
Companies are also forecasting labor shortages as fewer immigrants attempt to come to the United States at the same time that large swaths of non-citizen workers are being deported or leaving voluntarily.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security announced in October that 1.6 million people who were in the U.S. illegally have self-deported, and another 500,000 have been deported — though some analysts say those numbers are inflated.
Smithfield Foods, a national meatpacking company that employs 34,000 and has two facilities in Indiana, reported in September that immigration enforcement could disrupt portions of its workforce and operations.
“There can be no assurance that these activities or consequences will not adversely affect our business, financial condition or results of operations in the future,” the company said in a filing to the U.S. Security and Exchange Commission.
The state’s dairy industry shares the same worries, noted Obert, considering immigrant workers account for 80% of the workforce. With so many self-deporting and hardly any coming across the southern border to fill positions, dairy farms could soon face a devastating shortage, he predicted.
“We just don't have the domestic workforce to fill those jobs, and it's going to be interesting to see just how tight this labor market gets,” Obert said.
The situation could become dire in rural parts of the state, argued Michael Hicks, an economist and director of Ball State University’s Center for Business and Economic Research.
Indiana last year added nearly 44,150 residents, marking the state’s largest annual increase since 2008. About 70% of the population growth came from international migration, according to an Indiana University analysis.
Hicks predicted that trend will reverse and up to 65 of the state's 92 counties will see significant population declines in the coming year because of the crackdown on immigration. He estimated the state could experience one of the largest population declines in its history by the middle of next year.
For rural areas of Indiana already in an economic slump, the loss of immigrants who fuel farm and factory work will only make matters worse, Hicks argued.
“Those counties are going to face a virtually insurmountable pathway to prosperity,” he said. “It's just going to be a very difficult environment for economic growth without new folks being added to the population.”
HOLLOWING OUT INNOVATION
Corporations, hospitals and universities are also set to lose out on top-tier talent after Trump imposed a $100,000 fee and added new stipulations to the H-1b visa program, which is reserved for those with college degrees in high-skilled fields like medicine, technology or engineering.
The previous fees associated with obtaining the visa were about $5,000, according to Brown, the immigration attorney.
Trump has said the hefty fee is meant to deter companies from hiring foreign workers for entry-level jobs so they could instead be filled by U.S. citizens. He also argued the visa program was being abused to bring in foreign talent at lower wages.
But most Hoosier companies hire only H-1b workers they really need or can’t find in the U.S. labor market, explained Brown. The new fee means many businesses will have empty positions.
“They're not going out of their way to hire immigration counsel to help them navigate a very complicated H-1b system to suppress wages,” she said. “They're relying on this program for instances in which they need some workers.”
Colleges in Indiana also use H-1b visas to hire the world’s top researchers, scientists and professors that make the state home to world-renowned programs at institutions like Indiana, Purdue and Notre Dame universities, Hicks noted.
The new fee and burdensome stipulations mean colleges will be limited on who they hire, jeopardizing programs that produce talented professionals who fuel Indiana’s economy, he explained.
“This is going to hollow out what’s been a century of innovation in Indiana,” Hicks said. “It's going to put great pressure on the scientific capacity at our top universities.”
The U.S. Chamber of Commerce and Global Nurse Force are suing the Trump administration over the fee and asking a judge to halt its implementation. They argue that only Congress is allowed to make changes to the program.
Brown said Trump’s approach so far to implement mass deportations and cut back on foreign workers has been to use a blunt instrument on a very complicated immigration system.
In the end, ignoring the intricacies linking immigration and the state’s workforce will only hurt Hoosier laborers, companies and the economy, she argued.
“The real disgrace of it all is that it's not just people's pocketbooks in the end,” Brown said. “It's human lives we're talking about and their families.”