Idaho's 90% undocumented dairy workforce raises employer compliance stakes

For employers and their counsel, the most striking detail in Idaho's dairy story is not the 90% figure itself but the open acknowledgment of it. When a trade association CEO states on the record that most of his industry's workforce may lack legal status, he is describing a sector operating in a compliance gray zone held together by enforcement discretion — and that discretion is a policy choice, not a legal right.

The Trump administration's aggressive immigration crackdown has so far largely spared American farms, but reporting from Idaho's dairy heartland reveals a reprieve built on a remarkably fragile foundation. In Twin Falls, a southern Idaho city along the Snake River Canyon, the state's multi-billion-dollar dairy industry operates with a workforce that, by the estimate of its own trade association, is overwhelmingly undocumented. Rick Naerebout, CEO of the Idaho Dairymen's Association, puts the figure at roughly 90% of workers across the state's approximately 350 dairies. That concentration of legal vulnerability, described as an open secret even in deeply Republican Idaho, is the core tension of the story: an industry that helps feed the nation is one enforcement decision away from disruption.

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Rick Naerebout, CEO of the Idaho Dairymen's Association, puts the figure at roughly 90% of workers across the state's approximately 350 dairies.

Idaho routinely ranks among the top five states in the nation for milk production, and its dairy economy extends well beyond the farm gate. Processing facilities such as a cheese plant in Burley depend on a steady flow of milk, and family operations like Daloris Dairy in Rigby, where Dale Mortimer and his son Brett were photographed filling milk jugs in 2024, embody the generational, labor-intensive character of the business. The sector's productivity has historically rested on a workforce willing to do physically demanding outdoor work that Naerebout insists does not appeal to American applicants.

The enforcement picture is uneven. Interviews with attorneys and immigrant advocates indicate that rural, Republican-controlled states such as Idaho have not experienced the same intensity of immigration enforcement as their blue-state neighbors. Yet the enforcement presence is not hypothetical. Twice a week, an ICE deportation plane lands at the small Twin Falls airport, surrounded by farm fields a half-hour from the city. That twice-weekly reminder keeps the state's agricultural employers in a state of low-grade anxiety about when, rather than whether, the enforcement spotlight might turn toward them.

Crucially, the labor shortage predates the current crackdown. Farmers across the heartland were already struggling to fill positions before the recent wave of detentions and deportations, which means the margin for error has essentially disappeared. Naerebout's blunt framing captures the economic logic: 'We're not taking jobs from Americans. The jobs are physical in nature and you're out in the elements. They just don't appeal to Americans.' Whether or not that claim withstands scrutiny, it reflects a structural reality in American agriculture, which has long relied on immigrant labor at rates far above most other sectors.

The stakes extend beyond any single farm. Naerebout warns that a concerted effort to have enforcement activities within agriculture could really harm our ability to produce food to feed ourselves. That is not merely a farmer's lament; it is a statement about food security, food prices, and the integrity of a perishable, time-sensitive supply chain. Milk cannot be stockpiled the way grain can. It must be collected, transported, and processed on a tight schedule, and any labor disruption at the milking, hauling, or processing stage ripples outward quickly.