A federal court has struck down a U.S. Department of Labor rule that would have significantly reduced wages for farmworkers participating in the H-2A agricultural visa program, finding the policy arbitrary and capricious.
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of California ruled that the 2025 interim final rule failed to meet legal standards and did not comply with notice and comment requirements. The court ordered the Department of Labor to develop a new methodology for calculating the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) and put employers on notice that they may be required to provide back pay to workers if the new rate is higher than the rate that was briefly in effect.
The rule would have transferred an estimated $2.46 billion annually from H-2A farmworkers to employers, according to California Attorney General Rob Bonta, who joined a multi-state legal challenge to the policy. The rule abandoned farm-specific wage data, created new lower-paying job categories and deducted housing costs from worker wages.
The H-2A program allows agricultural employers to bring in foreign temporary workers when domestic workers are unavailable. Employers must provide housing and transportation and pay workers at the federally set AEWR.
Bonta said the longstanding wage methodology that the Department of Labor attempted to dismantle protected wages and working conditions for both H-2A and domestic farmworkers. "When employers can pay H-2A workers less, they pay domestic workers less too," he said in a statement.