In a recent “Purpose Driven Community Conversations,” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson intimated the state’s agricultural industry relied on illegal immigrant workers to achieve its productivity goals.

Although the use of seasonal migrant workers has been ingrained into the fabric of farm and orchard work in Michigan for decades, Benson conflates the very different status between legal migrant workers and illegal, or undocumented, agricultural employees.

During a recent “community conversation,” Jocelyn Benson falsely suggested Michigan farmers hire illegal immigrants, which is a violation of federal law: pic.twitter.com/t71vtr8ghp

— The Midwesterner (@Th_Midwesterner) December 26, 2024

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“I’ll just start by saying I’ve been meeting with a lot of farmers in our state you know agriculture is 25% of our economy and a lot of folks who are employed on farms not just in Michigan but across the country or folks from other countries to service seasonal workers and so we have to recognize: One, of course again our responsibility in Michigan is to make sure people are safe all across the board and secondly it also should make sure our economy functions and and that individuals who are important members of our economy are able to do so freely and safely and that’s what I think a lot of a lot of folks pushing for those protections are recognizing,” Benson said.

Democrat Benson is a likely contender to replace current Gov. Gretchen Whitmer when she’s term-limited out of office in 2026. Benson has also been called the state’s most partisan SOS ever by former Republican SOS Sen. Ruth Johnson, R-Holly. Johnson defeated Benson to become Secretary of State in 2010 and served in that role from 2011 to 2019. Benson, a former hate crimes investigator for the disgraced Southern Poverty Law Center.

Democratic secretaries of state like Benson have made it illegal for county canvassers to investigate voter fraud, and shifted spending to focus on “asylum seekers” and benefits for immigrants, Johnson told podcast host Tudor Dixon in late October.

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Election reforms backed by Benson in 2022 eliminated Michigan’s requirement for identification to vote, and “also enables people to register in the 14 days prior to the Election Day, and they can register without showing any ID,” Johnson said. These reforms allowed a Chinese national University of Michigan student to cast an illegal early voting ballot in Ann Arbor last month. Once the student notified officials of his mistake, there was no way to disqualify his ballot. There’s no way to calculate the number of ballots cast by illegal immigrants in last month’s presidential election.

In any event, President-elect Donald Trump has not given any indication his administration will attempt deportations of migrants who are in the U.S. legally, which includes 49,135 migrant and seasonal farmworkers in Michigan, according to 2013 Michigan Department of Health and Human Services data.

Trump’s incoming border czar Tom Homan told Fox News Sunday earlier this month that his focus will be on the deportation of an estimated 400,000 convicted criminals as reported Dec. 16 by The Detroit News.

Homan concedes that a certain amount of mission creep is inevitable, and some illegal immigrants without criminal charges might be caught up in Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s dragnet.

“I want to send a clear message,” Homan told the network’s Maria Bartiromo. “If you let us in the jail, we can arrest the bad guy in the jail and in the safety and security of the jail. (If) you release that guy in the community, I’m going to send an entire team to go look for the guy in your community. And what’s going to happen? We’ll find that guy. And when we find that guy, there’s probably going to be others that are not a priority. However, if they’re in the country illegally, they’ll be arrested, too.”

But nowhere does Homan indicate that the state’s long history of employing migrant farm workers who have worked legally in the state’s fields, barns, vineyards, and orchards is in jeopardy, contrary to Benson’s ominous and misleading assertions.

According to the Michigan Farm Bureau, the state’s agricultural industry could use more assistance than is currently available. However, rather than encouraging its members to seek out illegal immigrants, the organization chooses to work with legislators to develop solutions for the future.

“Farmers across America depend on a skilled, reliable workforce to help grow and raise our sustainable food supply,” Michigan Farm Bureau National Legislative Counsel John Kran wrote in an email to The Midwesterner. “Unfortunately, our farmers are experiencing a workforce crisis and have been asking for help from Congress for years. Too many growers in our state are facing labor challenges that are pushing them to the brink of collapse, and some have already made the heartbreaking choice to stop farming because of it. We need both sides of the aisle to work together on long-term legislative action to help alleviate skyrocketing labor costs and ensure that Michigan farmers can continue to grow affordable, high-quality food on our soil. Michigan Farm Bureau stands ready to work with the new Congress and presidential administration to deliver the certainty farmers need to continue producing affordable food for America’s families.”