Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins on Tuesday seemingly contradicted President Trump’s recent pledge to let immigrant farmworkers remain in the U.S. if their employers vouch for them. Instead, she put forth an insane scheme in which Medicaid recipients will replace deported farm laborers.
“There will be no amnesty,” Rollins said. “The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way. And we move the workforce towards automation and 100 percent American participation, which, again, with 34 million … able-bodied adults on Medicaid, we should be able to do that fairly quickly.”
Brooke Rollins on farm laborers: “There will be no amnesty. The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way. And we move the workforce toward automation and 100% American participation, which with 34 million able-bodied on Medicaid we should be able to do fairly quickly.” pic.twitter.com/GsLprEFImG
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) July 8, 2025
Notably, there are only roughly four million able-bodied adults without dependents on Medicaid who work fewer than 80 hours a month, per Matt Bruenig at the People’s Policy Project.
Nonetheless, Rollins is here barbarically proposing that the government have Medicaid recipients toil in fields in order to keep their health care coverage under recently passed Medicaid work requirements. All this to implausibly avoid crippling the U.S. food supply after immigrant farm workers have been mass deported.
Behold: MAGA populism.
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