A federal judge in Kentucky on Monday blocked the Biden administration’s expanded protections for farmworkers who come to work in the United States under H-2A visas.
The injunction issued Monday by U.S. District Judge Danny Reeves applies in Kentucky, Ohio, West Virginia and Alabama.
Seven Kentucky farmers and Republican attorneys general from the four states had argued that the U.S. Department of Labor rules would allow foreign farm workers to unionize.
Reeves agreed, saying the rules rephrase the National Labor Relations Act to extend American workers’ right to unionize to foreign H-2A workers, a change that he said would require action by Congress.
Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman was part of the multistate group of attorneys general challenging a Biden-Harris administration rule targeting farmers.
In September, he was joined by the attorneys general from Alabama, Ohio, and West Virginia to support farmers and oppose the U.S. Department of Labor’s rule that would create unlawful labor union burdens on farmers participating in the temporary agriculture worker program known as the H-2A Visa Program.
The attorneys general filed a motion to intervene in a lawsuit brought by Kentucky farmers at U.S. District Court in Lexington. Arguments successfully made before the court earlier this month led a federal district court judge to grant a temporary injunction, thereby halting enforcement of this regulation in Kentucky where it could have caused serious and irreversible damage to farmers who are just trying to get by and bring food to Kentucky’s dinner tables.
Since it was created in 1986, the H-2A Visa Program has allowed farmers to hire foreign workers on a temporary basis when they are unable to find available Americans to fill the jobs. The Biden-Harris Administration’s new regulation would have subjected Kentucky farmers to a new set of guidelines, including requirements that farmers allow temporary foreign-migrant workers to engage in collective bargaining.
“We should be working to help Kentucky’s farmers, not put them out of business,” Coleman said. “This unlawful and unnecessary rule from the Biden-Harris administration would have made it harder to get farmers’ products to grocery store shelves and would have increased already high prices for families.”
Kentucky Agriculture Commissioner Jonathan Shell praised the work of the Attorney General’s office, saying, “I’m grateful to Attorney General Coleman for his decisive action to protect Kentucky’s farmers. Safeguarding our agricultural community is essential to ensuring that Kentucky’s family farms can thrive.”
Donna Carpenter, Executive Director of the Lexington-based Agriculture Workforce Management Association, Inc., added, “Federal government overreach hurts farmers. This ruling gives us some much-needed temporary relief from the harmful impact of the Department of Labor's new H-2A rule.“
