The New York Times Runs Sob Story About a WI Dairy Farmer Who Might Lose His 'Undocumented' Laborers

Democrats have made it very clear that one of the reasons they support unfettered illegal immigration is that they want to import a slave-labor class that they can pay cheaply and keep in deplorable working conditions. They prove this every time they argue that, sans illegals, we wouldn't have anyone to clean our toilets or cut our grass and the price of our produce would go up because farmers would have to pay people a living wage to harvest crops (a lot of which is automated these days, anyway).

Now the New York Times is playing that card again, this time with Wisconsin, where a farm that made the choice to hire "undocumented workers" is worried deportations will hurt their business.

In Wisconsin, undocumented immigrants perform roughly 70% of the labor on the state's dairy farms. At the O'Harrow farm, the Republican family owners worry that the immigration crackdown will hurt their workers and their business. @stavernise https://t.co/ndPFPaUWNn
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) March 30, 2026

Here's more:

That worker, who came from Mexico as a teenager, knew that a calf that was sick in the morning could be dead by evening. He knew this because he has worked in the dairy industry in Wisconsin for his entire adult life, and on this family farm for about 20 years. Now in his 40s, he has mastered the intricacies of milking, birthing and inseminating, and logging it all onto a computer. This February morning, he was passing down his knowledge to the 19-year-old grandson of the family who employs him.
“We’re a little bit behind today, so you can hear everybody’s kind of angry at us,” said Sullivan O’Harrow, the grandson, who motioned toward the bellowing calves as he walked beside the worker training him.
Immigrant workers are the lifeblood of the O’Harrow farm, a four-generation family enterprise with 1,600 cows in northeastern Wisconsin. But many of them will not travel to Mexico to see dying parents, or drive to nearby towns to visit siblings, or let journalists use their names in newspapers, because they are afraid of being swept up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.
That they need to hide strikes the O’Harrow family as morally wrong, but also as potentially bad for the country: These workers oversee America’s milk. By one estimate, dairies that employ immigrant workers produce 79 percent of the nation’s milk supply and the price of milk would double without them.

This isn't the first time the Left has pretended Wisconsin will collapse if we enforce immigration laws. Governor Tony Evers said the state's economy would "implode" if we enforced immigration laws. Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany fired back at this claim, writing on X, "Illegal immigration drives down wages and undercuts Wisconsin workers. As governor, I will stand with hardworking Wisconsinites and protect your jobs from foreign labor."

Tbh, he should be held accountable for knowingly hiring illegals.
— mjhubbard🇺🇸 (@mjhubbard1) March 30, 2026

Yes. He knowingly hired people who couldn't legally work in this country, and then is shocked to face consequences for it.

Also remember, these slaves aren't free to the taxpayer. You are paying for their welfare checks, their hospital stays and their food stamps.

Businesses are simply passing on their costs to you.
— Repent you Heathen (@longmiresshadow) March 30, 2026

Bingo. All those costs are passed on to us, anyway.

This is also going to backfire, because check out what happened to one farm after immigration authorities removed his workers:

The New York Times recently published a column about a dairy farmer who deployed robots after immigration authorities arrested one of his workers. The farm now produces three times more milk per worker, while employees earn more, work shorter hours, and do less grueling work. https://t.co/FTNLDIGClP pic.twitter.com/9X3P35sus0
— Daniel Kishi (@DanielMKishi) March 30, 2026

Whoops.

Well, if your business models based on illegal labor, yes, enforcing the law will probably be a threat to it. https://t.co/LHp6zoZVn9
— Kurt Schlichter (@KurtSchlichter) March 30, 2026

The solution here is to not break the law.

Article is behind the paywall. Hard to comment on specifics. But, still waiting for the NYT piece on the cost to taxpayers for immigration benefits as it relates to increased healthcare, public schools and welfare benefits. https://t.co/5OgBfJo5fm
— SteveAustinWI (@SteveAustinWI) March 30, 2026

We'll never get that story. But in 2023, illegal immigration cost U.S. taxpayers $150 billion and that's without all the massive fraud.

“But who will pick the cotton?”

There’s no shortage of workers, there’s just a shortage of workers for minimum wage jobs. Farmers and business owners should pay market rates for non-illegal labor https://t.co/g8zEyGdPRq
— Wuhan Fourth Turning Swan (@TheWuhanClan) March 30, 2026

This is correct.

What we have here is a "journalist" arguing to preserve a business's ability to exploit slave labor. https://t.co/ynhvArpdHz
— DON LOEW (insert something funny) (@DRLDD) March 30, 2026

That's what Democrats continually do: they defend and cheer on slave labor. If this farmer voted for President Trump, he did so knowing that immigration enforcement and deportations were on the table. No one should have been surprised by this. Our immigration laws exist for a reason.

This story also shows that we need legal consequences for businesses that knowingly hire illegal aliens to do their work. That, along with removing welfare benefits, will discourage such practices and encourage more self-deportations when the jobs (along with the "free" housing and healthcare) dry up.

Editor’s Note: Democrat politicians and their radical supporters will do everything they can to interfere with and threaten ICE agents enforcing our immigration laws.

Help us hold these leftists accountable and expose their obstruction. Join Townhall VIP and use promo code FIGHT to receive 60% off your membership.