Trump Made an Oath — and it Could Destroy Napa’s Wine Industry if He Wins The Election

A promise made by Donald Trump could land a devastating blow to Napa’s wine industry. (Photo: AP Photo/Rick Scuteri)

The San Francisco Chronicle reported on Wednesday that former president Donald Trump’s promise of executing the “largest deportation program in American history” could spell disaster for Napa’s already fragile wine industry should the Republican candidate win the election.

The Chronicle interviewed undocumented agricultural workers, politicians, wine growers and lawmakers within the state and they unanimously agreed such an initiative would be terrible for the industry.

The outlet reported that Trump promised to carry out a mass deportation of the United States’s undocumented immigrants at an Atlanta rally earlier in October. Over 11 million undocumented immigrants reside in the country, and many of them are agricultural workers.

The Center for Farmworker Families, along with Rep. Jimmy Panetta D-Santa Cruz, shared with the San Francisco Chronicle that an estimated 75% of California’s agricultural workforce is made up of undocumented immigrants. Despite that large number, a labor shortage still casts a gigantic shadow over Napa’s wine industry.

Napa Valley Insider reported in July that vintners were struggling to find individuals willing to work harvests and tend to vines due to a cost of living crisis. The outlet reported the average hourly wage for a farm worker in the region is $18.24 an hour, but due to high housing costs, the wages would need to skyrocket to $52.88 an hour to keep up. Since these positions are difficult to hire, some vineyards end up hiring undocumented workers.

“Farm ranchers in my district already have trouble filling the jobs they have available,” Rep. Mike Thompson D-Napa said in a statement to the Chronicle. “We have a tremendous gap between the number of workers we have and the number of job openings. Something like this is just going to cause heartache.”

Though some vineyards rely on mechanical harvesting, the Chronicle reported that there’s a “stigma” associated with it. It’s possible if mass deportations do take place, vintners will begin to rely on machines to carry out the harvesting process. Those working in the industry believe the transition from manual to mechanized labor will be “catastrophic” on multiple fronts due to steep operations costs.

The region additionally features an H-2A program, which offers temporary visas for agricultural workers to complete seasonal labor. Yet many of these workers lack the experience some of the undocumented workers possess.

“Premium wine production has a lot of attention to fairly technical things,” Ed Kissam, an individual who has initiated studies on agricultural workers for multiple organizations including the Department of Labor, said to the Chronicle. “An unskilled H-2A worker won’t do as good of a job as a worker who’s been doing that sort of work for five to 10 years.”

The BBC reports that mass deportation is one of the critical cornerstones of the controversial Project 2025, which has been heavily linked to the former president. Under a Trump-run America, Project 2025 suggests combining the Department of Homeland Security with other anti-immigration agencies, creating more powerful border security.

“There’s no way Napa Valley could survive that kind of deportation,” Boeschen Vineyards Owner Doug Boeschen said to the San Francisco Chronicle.

A Wine Region on The Verge of Crisis — The State of Napa Valley

Much of 2024 has looked grim for Napa Valley. Fortune reported a whopping 17% drop in flagging sales, which has painted a portrait of a region in steep decline.

In January, the Silicon Valley Bank released its report on Napa’s Wine Industry, which began with a quote from Charles Darwin:

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor is it the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

Myriad factors, including the growing interest in alcohol-free beverages and demand for under-the-radar regions that are often more affordable than ultra-pricey Napa Wines, are also contributing to the headwinds the industry faces. In addition to these external pressures, the industry faces struggles from within.

In April, a growing amount of Napa Wineries pushed back at the local government, which some referred to as a “woke mob” for punitive legislation. Small vineyards like Hoopes Vineyard faced lawsuits from the county for reports of offering yoga classes and selling greeting cards. Even large vineyards faced repercussions, such as a $1 million fine to Chuck Wagner of Caymus Vineyards for “making too much wine.”

An unprecedented mass deportation would not only do further harm to Napa’s wine industry but the economy of the United States as a whole.

The Boston Globe estimates that such an undertaking would cost the United States a whopping $315 billion. The Globe broke down the costs, citing $89.3 billion for sweeps and arrests, $34.1 billion for processing, $167.9 billion for detention and $24.1 billion for “removals.”

“While some politicians treat mass deportations as a simple operation, the report breaks down the process and explains how ramping up each aspect — from arrest, to detention, to processing, to removal — would require an enormous infusion of resources and personnel at extreme costs,” Senior Fellow at the American Immigration Council Aaron Reichlin-Melnick explained to the Globe.

Yet Trump appears to be doubling down on his anti-immigrant stance. CNN reported on Thursday the ex-President referred to the United States as “like a garbage can for the world” at a rally in Arizona.

This statement marks the latest of Trump’s anti-immigrant rhetoric, which included false claims that Haitian immigrants were eating pets at an Ohio rally in September, per the BBC.

Election Day is Tuesday, November 5, 2024, and Bloomberg reported on Thursday that Trump and Harris were “locked in a dead heat.”