Insane ‘farmer-will vouch’ idea

President Donald Trump needs to create a new office. Hang a sign above the door — Office of Common Sense.

Staff it with someone who has…wait for it…Common Sense.

For example, this braindead idea I’m about to describe would never make it out of such an office. Into the shredder it would go, along with a note to the president, which would read: “Whoever came up with this idea, provided it wasn’t you, Mr. President, is a complete and utter moron.” What idea?

That as long as a farmer will “vouch” for his/her field laborers, they’ll be given papers that make their stay in the U.S. legit. No more need to worry about ICE or a deportation while working in the fields.

On the surface that may sound like a plan, since farmers in the RGV have already said publicly that their workers aren’t showing up to work, and with the local vegetable harvest set for November, who’s going to pick the crops when time is really of the essence?

However, if the White House Office of Common Sense was just staffed with one person who possessed that trait, which is really a byproduct of life experiences, they would toss the idea into the shredder.

Why? Because all a farmer can say, if they are asked to vouch for their workers, is that Juan G. has been a good worker for the past four seasons, never had any problems with him, and I don’t know of anything he’s done wrong except enter the U.S. illegally.

However, and here’s where the common sense pops to the surface – if Juan G. goes out and gets in a fatal DWI, killing a family of four, who are the plaintiff lawyers going to go after? Juan G.’s estate, or the farmer who vouched for his character?

Duh? No farmer is going to want to do that. Expose all the wealth, assets that they have built up over the years to a lawsuit.

Or if Juan G. gets drunk one night, goes off the rails, and sexually assaults a woman, who’s going to get stuck holding all the civil liabilities?

The Fed Promise

On July 3, President Trump said he is willing to let migrant laborers stay in the United States if the farmers they work for will vouch for them.

“If a farmer is willing to vouch for these people in some way, I think we're going to have to just say that’s going to be good…” (Source: Reuters.)

“We don't want to do it where we take all of the workers off the farms,” Trump added, speaking in a Midwestern state where farming is a dominant industry.

Based on what some local farmers have said publicly, the labor force is already in hiding, save those who work for a contractor who provides the labor to the farmer. Then it’s up to the contractor to vet the workers.

Trump’s speech was obviously before last week’s ICE crackdown in ag fields across southern California, which is the state that produces approximately 33 percent of the produce grown in the U.S.

Granted one of the fields was cannabis (legal in Calif., still illegal at the federal level), and ICE located some of the missing youth who had crossed the border and then disappeared, but other fields were raided as well. They weren’t all growing dope.

Also, the equipment rolling onto some of these fields, with the vids posted online, with ICE calling the shots, looked more like military equipment rolling into Baghdad, guaranteed to scare the pants off anyone on the scene.

So good luck, California, getting your field help back on the farms.

The Trump administration can’t even offer them (any undocumented farm laborers) an amnesty card to go to work in the fields.

Why? Not after telling immigrants let in under the Biden administration via the amnesty route that their temporary amnesty card is now no longer valid.

From a Politico story dated May 30, 2025: “The Supreme Court has given the Trump administration the go-ahead to begin deporting about a half-million immigrants from Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela who entered the U.S. legally under ‘humanitarian parole’ programs implemented during the Biden administration.”

After that, any federal government program that promises legal residence in the U.S. will no longer be trusted.

Meaning, when it comes to the continued picking of America’s vegetable ag industry, which demands contact with human hands, Common Sense is desperately needed, so we can find a solution that will actually work. The picking season is coming up fast.

Asking the farmer to vouch for each and every laborer working the farm is near borderline insanity if someone actually thinks that plan viable.

Also, the “contractors” mentioned earlier only supply labor to the large farms. Not the relatively small family farms still in operation in South Texas.