The Senate is set to OK President Joe Biden’s nominees for Interior secretary and U.S. Trade Representative this week, while the House looks to jump-start a congressional debate over immigration reform and farm labor.

The Adverse Effect Wage Rate that farmers are required to pay H-2A workers is rising by an average of 4.5% nationally to $14.62 per hour this year, with some western and Plains states seeing significantly higher increases. 

The Senate begins its impeachment trial for former President Donald Trump this week even as his successor pushes lawmakers to meet his demands for a $1.9 trillion package of coronavirus relief measures.

President-elect Joe Biden will nominate a former labor leader, Boston Mayor Marty Walsh, to become labor secretary. That’s a critical position for farmers and farmworkers because of the Labor Department’s regulation of labor standards and authority over the H-2A visa program.

A federal judge is blocking the Trump administration from carrying out changes to the H-2A minimum wage rates that would hold down annual pay increases.

Farms that use H-2A workers will be allowed to pay them significantly lower wages under a sweeping overhaul of the program’s wage regulations announced by the Labor Department on Monday.

USDA’s decision to stop collecting farmworker wage information using the Agricultural Labor Survey will significantly reduce income for those workers, United Farm Workers said in a lawsuit that seeks to maintain the survey.

A White House effort to lower the wages farms have to pay H-2A workers appears to have foundered amid concerns that it would put some regions at a disadvantage to others.

House Democrats are about to attempt something that Washington hasn’t been done in over three decades: Enact immigration reforms that would give farmers better access to foreign workers while offering legal status to their existing employees.