NPR News·6 min read

Trump's immigration push has largely spared farms. Idaho dairymen worry it won't last.

K
Kirk Siegler
Trump's immigration push has largely spared farms. Idaho dairymen worry it won't last.
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TWIN FALLS, Idaho — The floor-to-ceiling windows in Rick Naerebout's office afford a sweeping view of the stunning 500-foot-deep, quarter-mile-wide Snake River Canyon. Squint and you can still see what's left of stunt motorcycle rider Evel Knievel's ramp from his failed 1974 attempt to jump the canyon with a steam-powered rocket on his back.

That put Twin Falls on the map in the 1970s. But these days, Twin, as locals call it, and its surrounding fertile river plain are better known as a national agricultural powerhouse, owing largely to the state's multi-billion-dollar dairy industry.

Today it's also an open secret — even in deeply Republican Idaho — that local farms rely heavily on undocumented immigrant labor. Naerebout estimates some 90% of the workers at the state's some 350 dairies may not have legal status.

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