The Supreme Court grappled on Tuesday with a case involving poor working and living conditions for migrant workers at a New Jersey farm and how the federal government can collect damages for violations of the migrant worker program.
The high court heard oral arguments in Department of Labor v. Sun Valley Orchards, a case involving a dispute with H-2A migrant agriculture workers. Sun Valley Orchards, a New Jersey farm that grew vegetables and fruit, had applied for and been granted permission to import 96 noncitizen workers via the H-2A program in 2015, which included certain requirements and parameters to avoid undercutting domestic workers. The Labor Department’s Wage and Hour Division found that Sun Valley Orchards had violated several of the program’s requirements, including false promises about the living facilities, unacceptable housing and transportation, and improper deductions from workers’ wages.
The Labor Department ordered the farm to pay $211,800 in civil penalties and $344,945.80 in back wages for the alleged violations. The farm sued the Labor Department in federal court, alleging that the department could not enforce those fines on its own and needed instead to take them to federal court. At the heart of the arguments on Tuesday was whether the immigration component of the violations meant the claims needed to go to federal court for fines to be collected.
Deputy Solicitor General Sarah Harris argued that because the H-2A program allowed the farm to import noncitizen workers, the government was granting a privilege via the government’s immigration powers, and that therefore punishments for violating the terms of the program should be handled within the Labor Department. Robert Johnson, lawyer for Sun Valley Orchards, argued that the farm is being accused of violating a contract, creating a dispute that would have to be brought to a federal court if the federal government wanted to extract a fine out of the farm.
The justices appeared split over whether the immigration aspect of the case changed whether it should be handled within the Labor Department or brought to a federal court. The Supreme Court bench did not appear strongly won over by either side. The three left-leaning justices on the panel appeared skeptical of Johnson’s arguments that this issue does not fall within an “immigration exception,” with Justice Elena Kagan saying it appeared like “essentially, this is a kind of visa fraud or immigration fraud.”
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The Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling in the case as soon as early 2027, with a ruling due by the end of June 2027 at the latest.
Tuesday’s arguments mark the end of the Supreme Court’s current two-week sitting, with the high court scheduled to hold oral arguments next on Nov. 30 to start its busy two-week December sitting. During the Supreme Court’s December sitting, the justices will hear cases involving “assault weapons” bans, property rights, parental rights, and the Trump administration’s third-country deportation policy.