The UCLA-branded report–which UCLA has not identified as a peer-reviewed academic study–titled “Manufacturing Farmworker Displacement: How Local Agricultural Workers Are Displaced in Washington State,” authored by doctoral candidate Rosa María Navarro, makes statewide causal claims that its own research design does not appear capable of establishing.

The focus of the following analysis is whether Navarro and UCLA supplied the methodological rigor, transparency, external review and limitations necessary to generate a legitimate report.

There’s a troubling problem with the Navarro’s “loophole” accusation against farmers

Federal law does not merely permit employers to participate in the State Workforce Agency process. It requires H-2A employers to coordinate with the SWA, use the federal job registry, accept qualified referrals, contact certain former U.S. workers, hire qualifying U.S. applicants during the required period, maintain recruitment records and undertake additional positive recruitment when ordered.

So this sentence in Navarro’s report is particularly revealing: “[Growers] have identified and exploited a loophole in H-2A regulations.”

The report may legitimately argue that the federal recruitment rules ought to be changed. That’s a policy position. But that’s very different from demonstrating that farmers are exploiting a loophole by complying with the system the government requires them to use.

Is this an employer loophole, or is the author expressing disagreement with the federal recruitment system and falsely attributing that policy disagreement to alleged employer misconduct? Those are not the same thing.

Navarro’s “loophole” argument runs directly into Washington’s independent legislative audit

UCLA says growers have “identified and exploited a loophole” by increasingly using ESD’s recruitment process and online job postings. But Washington’s Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee conducted an actual performance audit of ESD’s H-2A administration in 2024. Its conclusion was that:

  • ESD complies with federal H-2A requirements.
  • Washington’s practices are consistent with other states.
  • ESD uses Spanish-language radio and newspapers, community outreach, bilingual staff and in-person WorkSource assistance—not merely online ads.
  • Some recruitment difficulties result from federal rules themselves, not a scheme invented by growers.

That’s all extremely significant!

Navarro’s report says growers have moved recruitment “almost entirely” online. The independent Legislative Auditor describes ESD using radio, newspapers, community events, worksites, housing locations, community centers and bilingual outreach.

Navarro and UCLA must address the glaring conflict between those statements.

The report ignores that using H-2A guest workers is often the costlier option

Farmers hiring guest workers via the federal H-2A visa program must pay the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR)–historically the highest hourly rate–as well as guarantee free housing, transportation and subsistence.

There is also a three-fourths work guarantee that farmers must adhere to, despite changes in work needs.

Participation in the H-2A guest worker program also involves significant other compliance costs.

Yet this report ignores these facts as it argues that growers are using the program to cut costs.

Navarro’s biases are not addressed in the methodology

The report’s author, doctoral candidate Rosa Navarro, does not share her personal stake in the study’s outcomes, only mentioning later in her closing biographical details what she calls her “scholar-activist lens” and her personal family history in the debate surrounding this issue.

These are critical details that should be addressed within the report’s methodology. But we do not see any sort of limitations section–where this information should be included–anywhere in the report.

The methodology is remarkably thin for the breadth of the conclusions

The methodology section tells us there were 75 interviews and 179 surveys and gives some broad categories of questions. But we do not see disclosure of the sampling frame, how participants were recruited, whether the survey sample was probability or non-probability based, participation/response rate, field dates, weighting, questionnaire wording, interview coding protocol, or statistical methods used to generalize the results.

Those aren’t obscure technical details. The American Association for Public Opinion Research identifies sample recruitment, population definition, questionnaire wording, collection mode, field dates, sample disposition, weighting and study limitations among the information needed for transparent evaluation of publicly released survey research. And we do not find a substantive limitations section in this report.

There is a major leap from worker perceptions to causal conclusions

When we look at the questions Navarro says she asked survey respondents, one was essentially whether respondents felt their work had been impacted on farms that also employed H-2A workers.

Worker experiences absolutely have value as qualitative evidence. But asking someone whether they believe H-2A affected their employment does not, by itself, establish that H-2A caused their reduced hours or lack of work.

We don’t see a comparison group, employer-level hiring data, longitudinal analysis, econometric model, or controls for other potential explanations such as crop conditions, mechanization, markets, immigration enforcement, farm closures, seasonal variation or changing production.

Yet the report moves to statements such as: “Expanded use of the H-2A visa program has reduced employment opportunities…” and describes “systematic displacement.”

That’s precisely the distinction that should be further examined: the report may document perceptions and individual experiences, but has it demonstrated causation or prevalence?

The undocumented worker argument deserves very close scrutiny

The UCLA report expressly states that many local workers are undocumented and therefore cannot qualify through ESD, and it uses that fact to argue that the recruitment system effectively excludes people who historically worked on farms.

But federal H-2A law defines an eligible domestic worker, for this purpose, as someone who is not an unauthorized alien with respect to that employment.

That creates a fundamental conceptual problem.

If the author’s argument is that immigration law should be changed so undocumented people can legally work, she can make that policy argument.

But an employer cannot legally cure that exclusion by hiring an unauthorized worker.

So how does the inability of an unauthorized worker to obtain lawful employment become evidence that a farmer has exploited a recruitment “loophole”?

Another significant internal contradiction

The report itself says:

“There is currently no accurate count of how many farmworkers live in the state…” and recommends creating a statewide survey that would give the Legislature the “evidentiary foundation needed to assess H-2A misuse.”

Read that again.

The report acknowledges that Washington doesn’t currently possess the statewide data needed to establish the evidentiary foundation for assessing misuse—and then presents a report titled:

“Manufacturing Farmworker Displacement: How Local Agricultural Workers Are Displaced in Washington State.”

If the evidentiary foundation needed to assess statewide H-2A misuse does not yet exist, how does this report establish systematic statewide displacement?

Eerie connection between report’s conclusions and ongoing political lobbying effort

Those with background in this issue in Washington state see that the report’s recommendations align with a specific legislative agenda that’s already been promulgated by advocacy groups in Olympia.

The four recommendations, interestingly, parallel the lobbying efforts pushing for Senate Bill 6045.

Even more troubling: the groups lobbying for SB 6045 in the Washington State Legislature include United Farmworkers and Familias Unidas por la Justicia, which are both listed as contributing to Navarro’s report.

Given these connections, coupled with the author’s biases and apparent effort to minimize their impact on the report, it’s difficult to argue these things are all just a coincidence. Instead, they raise serious questions about whether this research is genuine, or simply an advocacy research piece designed to further a political goal while masquerading as legitimate science.

Navarro describes the survey population inconsistently

UCLA’s press release says the author conducted 179 surveys of immigrant farmworkers “across Washington State.” The report’s methodology says the 179 surveys were conducted with farmworkers “in Eastern Washington.” But Figure 3 labels those 179 respondents “local immigrant farmworker survey respondents in Grant County.” Those are three materially different descriptions of the sample.

If all 179 survey respondents were actually from Grant County, UCLA’s press release describing them as surveys “across Washington State” deserves a correction. More importantly, a Grant County survey cannot simply be generalized into statements such as “Across the state, local farmworkers report…” without explaining the inferential basis.

Other Problems

Some reported percentages do not reconcile cleanly with the stated sample sizes. That does not prove the figures are wrong—weighting or missing observations could explain them—but no such methodology is disclosed.

The report appears to materially misread one of its own sources. It characterizes $27,301 as median household income and $683 as median monthly income, while the cited National Low Income Housing Coalition source identifies $27,301 as the 30%-of-area-median-income threshold and $683 as affordable monthly rent at that income level. That is a concrete source-fidelity problem, not a matter of political perspective.

The three Attorney General cases are treated fairly. They are serious evidence that violations occurred at specific employers, but three selected enforcement cases cannot by themselves establish the prevalence of misconduct across more than 800 employers statewide.

Summary

Our analysis identifies extensive problems with the report, and these lead to several questions the researcher and the research institution must address.

If Navarro and UCLA cannot produce methodology capable of substantiating its statewide and “systematic” claims, those claims should be materially revised or withdrawn; if the core conclusions of this report depend on defects that cannot be corrected, retraction of the brief in its present form is warranted.