From his office overlooking the dramatic 500-foot-deep, quarter-mile-wide Snake River Canyon, Rick Naerebout can still glimpse the rusted remnants of Evel Knievel’s 1974 rocket-powered jump attempt. The canyon, a tourist curiosity, sits beside a region that has quietly become a national dairy powerhouse. With more than 350 dairies scattered across the fertile river plain, Idaho now ranks among the top five milk-producing states in the United States.
Despite the impressive output, the industry’s backbone is composed largely of workers without legal status. Naerebout, CEO of the Idaho Dairymen’s Association, estimates that roughly 90% of labor on these farms is undocumented. “The jobs are physical in nature and you’re out in the elements” he says, arguing that the work simply does not appeal to the local American workforce.
Idaho’s dairy industry and its reliance on undocumented labor
Behind the glass doors of Daloris Dairy in Rigby, father-son duo Dale Mortimer and Brett fill milk jugs while the rest of the state’s dairy sector churns out billions of gallons each year. The industry’s success rests on a steady stream of migrant hands that have been arriving since the 1950s. Because dairy work is required year-round, farms cannot tap the seasonal H2A visa program that many other agricultural employers use. Last year alone, Idaho posted 7,500 H2A positions, yet only four local residents applied.
Farmers argue that the wages offered at dairy operations surpass most service-industry jobs in small towns, but the shortage persists. Susan Rios, a 65-year-old farm-worker activist, points out that the scarcity is prompting families to leave the state entirely. “I’m sure that you will be hired immediately” she tells anyone who doubts the demand for labor, urging locals to consider dairy work as a viable option.
Immigration enforcement and the twin-weekly ICE flights
While Idaho’s political landscape leans heavily Republican, the state has not escaped the reach of immigration enforcement. Twice each week—on Tuesdays and Thursdays—a small ICE-contracted plane lands at Twin Falls airport, ferrying detainees from surrounding farms to unknown detention centers. Activist Heather Muth and her group unfurl a banner that reads “Human Rights, Not Shuffle Flights,” highlighting the community’s unease.
“The whole purpose of [these flights] is for them to move around so that their attorneys and their families can’t find them,” Muth explains, recounting how she once counted more than two dozen shackled detainees being loaded onto the aircraft. Although the operations are far smaller than the massive sweeps seen in cities like Los Angeles, they cast a chilling shadow over a region that has depended on immigrant labor for decades.
Hiring shortages, political tension, and an uncertain future
Farmers warn that intensified enforcement could cripple the nation’s ability to feed itself. “If we had a concerted effort to have enforcement activities within agriculture, you could really harm our ability to produce food to feed ourselves” Naerebout cautions. The dairy sector’s influence in a state that has voted for Trump in three presidential elections grants it a degree of political protection, yet the industry acknowledges that this goodwill could wane.
Immigration attorney Brandy Perez attributes the relatively limited number of large raids in Idaho to the dairy industry’s “ear” with state legislators and the governor. Nevertheless, with the federal government’s crackdown continuing and a bipartisan bill to loosen seasonal visa requirements stalled in Congress, farms remain on edge. As the dairy cows wait to be milked each day, the sector’s leaders watch closely, hoping the promised reforms from Washington arrive before the labor gap widens further.
