Dustin Pugel, policy director at the center, said the state has seen a more than 30% increase in Immigration and Customs Enforcement arrests since 2024. He said there are thousands of cooks who are immigrants, both documented and undocumented, along with dishwashers and other restaurant staff.
"The concern is that if you either start deporting these folks or even more likely, you just scare them away from work," Pugel explained. "Not only are you creating a shortage in those roles, but you actually make it harder for everyone in the restaurant to make ends meet."
According to the report, removing immigrants from the state’s working population would mean a loss of more than 112,000 workers between the prime ages of 25-54, which could trigger businesses to scale back and could result in higher costs for consumers, not only because immigrants are often underpaid but because a labor shortage would also lead to a shortage of goods and services.
While data on the state’s farmworkers is hard to come by, Pugel noted removing immigrants would create additional pressure on an industry that is critical to Kentucky’s well-being and has already been under decades of strain. He added that 6,400 H2-A visas were awarded to producers in 2025, allowing migrant workers to fill seasonal farming positions.
"That workforce is augmented every year by over 6,000 migrant workers who come on an H-2A visa," Pugel pointed out. "They are critical to making sure that we can provide the poultry, the dairy, the vegetables, the grains that we do as a state."
An estimated 50,000 people who are undocumented live in the Commonwealth. While undocumented immigrants are the most vulnerable to deportation, Pugel stressed that the Trump administration is increasingly targeting people with noncitizen legal status, such as recipients of Temporary Protected Status and asylum-seekers.
