The Trump administration has ramped up its immigration enforcement over the last month, and claims to be targeting  “the worst of the worst” for detention and deportation. However, several reports detail how U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is targeting individuals simply for exercising their right to free speech, even going as far as repealing the immigration status of those who are lawfully in the United States and removing them without any due process. Further, ICE has wrongfully detained a growing number of U.S. citizens in Trump’s crackdown on immigration.    

Last week, ICE agents violently removed organizer and advocate Alfredo “Lelo” Juarez from his car while dropping his partner off at work. Juarez is well known in Washington state for fighting for farmworkers’ basic rights, such as overtime pay and protections from extreme heat. Although Juarez lacks an immigration status and had an order of removal dating back to 2018, he had no criminal record and was thus likely targeted for his work with workers’ rights organizations. He is currently being held in the Northwest Detention Center in Tacoma.

Nearly half of farmworkers are undocumented immigrants according to government estimates, which means they are much more likely to be the victims of workplace violations like wage theft because they fear deportation if they speak up to defend their rights. The targeting and detention of Alfredo Juarez is a prime example of how employers and the government can exploit an individual’s immigration status to intimidate workers from exercising their right to organize as a means of improving their working conditions. We don’t know how Juarez got on ICE’s radar, but could a disgruntled and anti-union employer have called ICE and told them to look into Juarez? It’s not out of the realm of possibility—and it’s certainly a tactic that employers have at their disposal, especially now under the current White House leadership which ultimately values terrorizing immigrants rather than public safety or workers’ rights.

Immigrant workers, even those who lack immigration status or have temporary status and permission to work, are protected under U.S. labor and employment laws—at least on paper. However, many employers can violate workers’ rights with near impunity because labor standards enforcement agencies are woefully underfunded and understaffed, and there are insufficient penalties to punish those who break labor laws. For example, there are no civil monetary penalties for when employers violate workers’ rights under the National Labor Relations Act. A 2019 EPI study found that employers were charged with violating labor law in 41.5% of all union elections. Simply put, employers will use any means necessary, including legal and illegal forms of intimidation, to dissuade workers from advocating for fair pay and better working conditions.  

While some federal labor laws protect farmworkers, they are excluded from others, which makes their experience in the workplace even more precarious, leaving them to rely on a patchwork of laws in a small handful of states that provide some basic labor protections. Despite being the backbone of the U.S. food supply, farmworkers experience low pay, dangerous working conditions, and harsh living conditions.

Fortunately, Washington state law entitles a majority of farmworkers to the state minimum wage, overtime pay, and the right to join unions. For more than a decade, Alfredo Juarez organized to improve these state laws. Even just last month, Juarez led a group of farmworker activists to Washington’s capitol to speak with state lawmakers about working conditions in the fields. By detaining a prominent union organizer, the Trump administration has sent a message that exercising your legal right to improve your working conditions can make you the target of a government that won’t think twice about putting you in a cage and removing you from the country.

Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her insights on the jobs report released this morning, which showed 228,000 jobs added in March. 

 

So far the labor market has remained far more resilient than expected given the economic turmoil fostered by recent policy decisions. While there were downward revisions to topline numbers in prior months, job growth came in at 228k for March. Federal jobs losses totaled 15k since Jan.
#NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) April 4, 2025 at 7:45 AM

In March, jobs gains were strongest in health care and leisure and hospitality. Social assistance, retail services, and transportation and warehousing also noted gains. Federal government employment fell while state and local jobs grew. #NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) April 4, 2025 at 8:17 AM

Employment in the federal government fell 4,000 in March after dropping 11,000 in February. More recent federal UI claims data—after the reference period for these data—suggest further cutbacks.
#EconSky #NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) April 4, 2025 at 8:17 AM

NOMINAL wage growth holds steady, down slightly to 3.8% YoY. After falling steadily since its 2022 peak, inflation hovered around 3% for 21 months. As a result, average REAL wages have been rising. This could be the calm before the storm of tariffs and deportations hit the labor market.
#NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) April 4, 2025 at 8:30 AM

Household survey mostly holding steady for March, but remains a little weaker than Jan. Unemployment up to 4.2% from 4.0% in Jan (up only 0.01pp since Feb). Household employment ticked up, but remains a little softer than Jan. Prime-age EPOP ticked down to 80.4%, down from 80.7% in Jan. #NumbersDay

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) April 4, 2025 at 8:58 AM

Cuts to Medicaid and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP, sometimes called food stamps) are inevitable if Congress and President Trump continue down the budget path they have laid out. Despite President Trump’s claim that he is opposed to cutting Medicaid, he enthusiastically endorsed the budget resolution passed by the House of Representatives in February. The Congressional Budget Office has confirmed that achieving the level of spending reductions specified in this resolution would require cuts to Medicaid (and more cuts on top of that). The House FY 2025 budget resolution calls for, among many other things, an extension of the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA) and requires $2 trillion in spending cuts. To pay for this, the budget resolution has asked House committees that oversee both Medicaid and the SNAP to identify hundreds of billions in potential cuts. The anticipated cuts to both Medicaid and SNAP threaten the economic security of millions of working families.

Medicaid provides health coverage to many low-income households, which include disabled residents, pregnant workers earning low wages, and low-income seniors, all of whom would be greatly harmed by cuts to this program. Workers of color and their families are especially vulnerable to cuts to Medicaid due to structural inequities that cause them to be overrepresented among low-income households. Cutting Medicaid and SNAP and extending the tax cuts from the TCJA would redistribute resources from the bottom of the income distribution towards the top. The bottom fifth of households by income would gain just 0.6% in income on average from the TCJA tax cuts and lose 7.4% from the Medicaid cuts (bringing their net loss to 6.8%), whereas the top 1% of households would see a net gain of 3.9% from these cuts.

Federal cuts to Medicaid follow a long history of political battles over publicly provided health coverage, with major implications for communities of color. The Affordable Care Act and its expansion of Medicaid helped reduce the nonelderly Black and Hispanic uninsured rate by more than 10 percentage points between 2010 and 2023. In fact, both Black and Hispanic individuals under the age of 65 recorded their lowest uninsured rate in 2023, at 9.7% and 17.9%, respectively. Still, many red states where much of the labor force is comprised of poorly paid Black and Hispanic workers have been unwilling to expand access to Medicaid. In 2023, after the end of the Medicaid re-enrollment provision that helped families and children remain insured throughout the pandemic, Black and Hispanic individuals were twice as likely as their white peers to lose coverage. Two years later, Black and Hispanic families stand to experience the brunt of the cuts once again.

People of color are more likely to rely on Medicaid for coverage

While non-Hispanic white individuals account for the largest number of Medicaid beneficiaries, Black and Hispanic individuals are more likely to depend on Medicaid for health coverage. In 2023, nearly a third of Black (29.0%) and Hispanic (29.6%) people relied on Medicaid for health insurance (see Figure A below). These figures amount to more than 13 million Black and more than 19 million Hispanic Medicaid recipients who stand to see a reduction in benefits as a result of Republican efforts in Congress to provide tax cuts that will disproportionately favor the most affluent households in the country at the expense of the most economically vulnerable.

Figure A Children and teens stand to be the most affected by cuts to Medicaid

Children and teens of color stand to be most adversely affected by cuts to Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP). While Medicaid provides health coverage to low-income individuals and families, including individuals with disabilities, CHIP provides free or low-cost coverage to a larger universe of children (under the age of 19) in families that can’t afford private health insurance for routine check-ups, dental visits, and a wide range of other essential services. Like Medicaid, CHIP is jointly financed by the federal government and the states that administer it. Funding for CHIP is tied to Medicaid as states can operate CHIP as a program separate from Medicaid, as an expansion from Medicaid, or a combination of both.

More than half of Black and Hispanic children, and teens under the age of 19, rely on Medicaid or CHIP for health care coverage (see Figure B below). These children are more than twice as likely as their white peers to rely on public health insurance. Potential cuts to Medicaid or CHIP will impact the benefits of more than six million Black and more than 10 million Hispanic children and teens. Medicaid cuts are also likely to cost the federal government more in the long run, as a growing body of research shows that Medicaid coverage for children is a powerful investment in the health and productivity of the future workforce.

Figure B What cuts to Medicaid mean for workers and families of color

When policymakers cut programs designed to help low-income workers, those who cannot work, and their families access health care to fund tax breaks that tilt sharply towards the highest-income households, they are showing disregard for the health and well-being of the vulnerable and deference to the rich.

Black and Hispanic workers are more likely to work in jobs that do not provide access to health insurance, more likely to live and work in environments hazardous to their health, and less likely to have the financial resources to improve their health by buying healthful goods and services. These factors together mean that Black and Hispanic workers are more vulnerable to cuts to Medicaid.

The upshot is this: Cuts to Medicaid will make low-income workers, non-workers, and their families poorer and less able to afford health care, especially those who are Black or Hispanic. An economy that works and grows requires all workers and their families to be able to access the health care they need to show up to their jobs, to school, or for their community. Funding tax cuts for the wealthy by weakening the most vulnerable among us is a poor strategy for both the health of the nation and the economy.

Below, EPI senior economist Elise Gould offers her insights on today’s release of the Job Openings and Labor Turnover Survey (JOLTS) for February. Read the full thread here.

 

The topline numbers in the latest #NumbersDay report on Job Openings and Labor Turnover for February showed little changed in February, but we can see the fingerprints of recent policy decisions on the federal workforce. The data show 18,000 laid off federal workers in February.

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) April 1, 2025 at 9:23 AM

The spike in the layoffs rate for federal workers in February 2025 is the steepest uptick since the laying off of census takers in 2020. The decision of this administration to target the federal workforce is having its intended effect. Unfortunately, this is likely only the tip of the iceberg.

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) April 1, 2025 at 9:31 AM

Because the federal workforce is only a small share of the overall workforce—and one that has fallen precipitously as a share since the 1950s—the federal layoffs are not showing up in the economy-wide layoff rate.
www.epi.org/blog/doge-is…

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) April 1, 2025 at 9:42 AM

Overall, the rate of hires, quits, and layoffs were unchanged between January and February. What we are beginning to see in the federal workforce layoffs along with massive spending cuts has yet to hit the data for the private sector. There’s no question it is coming.
#NumbersDay #EconSky

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— Elise Gould (@elisegould.bsky.social) April 1, 2025 at 9:48 AM