They're coming for those on Medicaid, to use as farm workers.

[Grasswire2]

Ahead of the Cabinet meeting today, Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins said she plans to replace migrant farm workers with “able-bodied adults on Medicaid.” Got that everyone?

[Phoenix61]

1. Was there ever any doubt? And if that doesn't work

they’ll bring back the chain gangs.

[Sogo]

2. So they'll have to fly after their shift ends at (for example) Walmart in Omaha to CA to work the fields,

then back to Omaha that evening to go to work at Walmart in Omaha the next day? Is that how it'll work?

[sop]

3. Wow, this is some Trumpified 'Grapes of Wrath' bizarro world shit.

[pamdb]

4. gross

And if there aren't enough medicaid workers, we could just bring back slavery. That was a fun time! Well, for some people.

[The Blue Flower]

6. Define 'able bodied'

Those of us who are old enough to be on Medicare are probably not. I know I don't qualify.

[standingtall]

8. I think what your missing is their going to redefine it

at their whims. Disabled now declared able bodied tomorrow. Who needs child labor laws get those 7 year old slackers in the fields. That's where we are headed.

[jmbar2]

7. They'll have to have accommodations in the fields for wheelchairs, the blind, and the Alzheimer's workers

Oh wait... that would be DEI wouldn't it.

[mucholderthandirt]

9. They won't be getting much work from me.

I have degenerative discs in my lower back, and possibly a hip abductor ligament tear (have to try physical therapy first before they'll consider surgery). I can barely walk, sit or lie down. For sure can't bend over.

I'm on Medicare, for as long as I can keep up, too old and too sick to go to work doing anything. Covid left me with something like dyslexia between my fingers and my brain, I make so many typos now!

But, hey, this isn't America anymore, so who cares what happens to any of us?

Oh, and I bet there are more Trumpers on Medicaid than anything else. See how long they'll put up with their orange jebus putting them in the fields.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

10. Maddow Blog-Agriculture secretary suggests Medicaid recipients can replace immigrants as farmworkers

If the Trump administration is counting on Americans on Medicaid replacing immigrants on farms, officials should probably start working on a Plan B.

Agriculture secretary suggests Medicaid recipients can replace immigrants as farmworkers.
If the Trump administration is counting on Americans on Medicaid replacing immigrants on farms, officials should probably start working on a Plan B.
www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddo...

— hateGOP (@hategop.bsky.social) 2025-07-08T21:36:08.484Z

Link to tweet

https://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/maddowblog/agriculture-secretary-suggests-medicaid-recipients-can-replace-immigra-rcna217572

Soon after, Team Trump reversed course, and then reversed course yet again. As recently as last week, the president talked about developing a temporary pass for immigrants who work on farms, which was the opposite of what his “border czar” said a week earlier.

This week, as Reuters reported, the moving target moved again:

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins said on Tuesday that there will be ‘no amnesty’ for agricultural workers from the Trump administration’s efforts to deport all immigrants in the country illegally. The farm sector has warned that mass deportation of farm workers would disrupt the U.S. food supply.

To be sure, the Cabinet secretary’s comments were newsworthy, though if recent history is any guide, a prominent White House official, including possibly Donald Trump himself, will contradict Rollins very soon.

But of particular interest was something else the agriculture secretary said.
https://bsky.app/profile/did:plc:4llrhdclvdlmmynkwsmg5tdc/post/3lthhwchvtw2h

Link to tweet

“I can’t emphasize this enough,” Rollins said. “There will be no amnesty; the mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way; and we move the workforce toward automation and 100% American participation, which with 34 million able-bodied adults on Medicaid, we should be able to do fairly quickly.”

In other words, as the agriculture secretary sees it, there’s no need for concern about farmers losing out on immigrant labor because those workers can be replaced thanks to “automation” and Medicaid beneficiaries......

But what I find myself stuck on is Rollins’ quote in the context of the Republicans’ domestic policy megabill. GOP policymakers approved sweeping and unprecedented cuts to Medicaid, arguing that Americans who lose coverage can simply get jobs that offer health insurance.

It’s against this backdrop that the secretary of agriculture suggested that Medicaid beneficiaries — whose coverage is at risk — can replace immigrants as farmworkers, brushing past the inconvenient fact that farmworkers tend not to get health care coverage.

All of which is to say, if the administration is counting on Americans on Medicaid replacing immigrants on farms, officials should probably start working on a Plan B.

[RedWhiteBlueIsRacist]

11. I say round-up all the Republicans at gunpoint and put them in the fields. Tell 'em, picking cotton is PATRIOTIC!