TWIN FALLS, Idaho — From his office near the Snake River Canyon, Rick Naerebout has a front-row seat to one of the most productive agricultural regions in the United States. The deep gorge carved by the river, along with the fertile plain surrounding it, has helped transform this corner of southern Idaho into a national powerhouse for dairy production. The state regularly ranks among the top five in the country for milk output.
But the industry that defines this region rests on a workforce that is largely undocumented — a reality that is widely acknowledged here, even in one of the most reliably Republican states in the nation. Naerebout, who leads the Idaho Dairymen's Association, estimates that roughly 90% of the workers at the state's approximately 350 dairies may lack legal status. It is, as he describes it, an open secret.
Naerebout argues that the reliance on immigrant labor is not a matter of employers seeking to undercut American workers. The jobs on dairy farms, he says, are physically demanding and require long hours outdoors in all kinds of weather. Few domestic workers are willing to take them, even when they are available. "We're not taking jobs from Americans," he said, pointing to the difficult nature of the work and the lack of interest from the local labor pool.
So far, American agriculture has been largely left alone by President Trump's aggressive immigration enforcement campaign. The mass arrests, detentions and deportation efforts that have swept through other industries and communities have not yet focused on the nation's farms. That relative restraint has given growers and ranchers a measure of relief — but not much comfort.
As Immigration and Customs Enforcement operations continue across the country, farmers in Idaho and throughout the heartland are watching with growing unease. Many of them were already struggling to find enough workers before the recent wave of detentions and deportations began. Any expansion of enforcement into agricultural areas, they warn, could quickly cripple their operations.
Naerebout is blunt about what is at stake. If immigration authorities launched a coordinated effort to conduct enforcement activities within agriculture, he said, it could seriously undermine the country's ability to produce enough food to feed itself. The concern is not limited to Idaho. Dairy farms, fruit orchards, vegetable fields and meatpacking plants across the country depend heavily on immigrant labor, a large share of it unauthorized.
The history of the Snake River Canyon region illustrates how quickly a community can be reshaped. In 1974, the canyon became famous when stunt motorcyclist Evel Knievel attempted to jump it using a steam-powered rocket. The failed spectacle put Twin Falls on the map and gave the area a brief moment of national attention. In the decades since, the region's identity has shifted toward agriculture, and the dairy industry in particular has become a multi-billion-dollar economic engine.
That success, however, has always depended on workers who are willing to do jobs that most Americans avoid. The floor-to-ceiling windows in Naerebout's office offer a panoramic view of the canyon, a reminder of the area's dramatic landscape. But the real foundation of the local economy lies in the barns and milking parlors that operate around the clock, staffed almost entirely by immigrants.
The political landscape adds another layer of complexity. Idaho is deeply conservative, and Trump carried the state comfortably in recent elections. Many farmers here share the president's broader views on immigration policy. Yet they also know that their businesses could not function without the very workers that enforcement efforts might target. That tension has left many producers in an uncomfortable position, hoping that agriculture will continue to be treated as a special case.
For now, the farms have been spared. But the uncertainty is taking a toll. Farmers say they cannot plan for the future when the labor supply is so precarious. Some have scaled back expansion plans. Others worry about what will happen if a single large raid or a series of smaller enforcement actions scare workers away from the region entirely.
Naerebout and other industry leaders have been urging policymakers to recognize the unique needs of agriculture. They argue that any serious immigration overhaul must include a workable guest worker program or some form of legal status for the people who are already here and doing essential work. Without that, they say, the nation risks disrupting its own food supply.
The debate is not new. For years, agricultural groups have pushed for legislation that would allow undocumented farmworkers to remain in the country legally. Those efforts have repeatedly stalled in Congress, leaving the industry to rely on the status quo. The difference now is the heightened atmosphere of enforcement, which has made the status quo feel far less secure.
As ICE sweeps continue in other parts of the country, dairy farmers in Idaho are left to wonder whether their turn is coming. The quiet worry in places like Twin Falls is that the relative calm for agriculture will not last. If it ends, the consequences could ripple far beyond the barns and into grocery stores and dinner tables across America.
For Naerebout, the message is simple: the people who milk the cows and tend the herds are not a problem to be solved but a workforce to be protected. "If we had a concerted effort to have enforcement activities within agriculture," he said, "you could really harm our ability to produce food to feed ourselves."
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