Deportation Effects on the Dairy Industry

Hernan A. Tejeda(a), Philip Watson(a), and Timothy Nadreau(a)
(a)University of Idaho

JEL Codes: JEL Codes: J43, Q12, Q18
Keywords: agricultural employment, agricultural labor market, dairy, deportation, undocumented migrants

First Published Online: April 15, 2026

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Abstract

The Trump administration has aggressively pursued deporting undocumented migrants, including those employed in the agricultural and food sector. We examine the economic impacts of deporting undocumented labor throughout the dairy supply chain and across related sectors of the US economy and, as an illustrative example, the representative dairy-producing state of Idaho.

About the Authors: Hernan Tejeda (Corresponding Author Email: htejeda@uidaho.edu) is an Associate Professor and Extension Specialist, Philip Watson is a Professor, and Timothy Nadreau is an Assistant Professor, Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Sociology, University of Idaho, Moscow, ID.

: This study was funded in part by USDA-NIFA, Hatch project IDA0-179 and the Idaho Agricultural Experiment Station.

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