Even Maryland Rep. Andy Harris couldn’t get an answer from the Trump administration.

An executive order in late January paused multiple U.S. Department of Agriculture programs, including one aimed at farmers trying to hire immigrant workers legally to address labor shortages. On March 28, Harris started a congressional inquiry into the frozen funds. But after three weeks, he was only left with more questions.

“Payments have been on hold to ensure they align with the Department’s goals and priorities,” wrote William Beam, the program’s administrator, in an April 18 email response. “She [Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins] is working to make determinations as quickly as possible.”

With the summer season now well underway, farmers who agreed to participate in the Farm Labor Stabilization and Protection pilot program are still waiting to hear whether they’ll ever receive the millions of dollars awarded to them.

“When the government promises you money,” said Flying Plow Farm owner Sarah Rider, “your first thought isn’t: ‘What happens if that money goes away?’”

Henry Bennett, who runs an orchard that sells peaches and blueberries in Harris’ district, said the program “put our sixth-generation family farm at risk.”

Bennett was promised $100,000 to bring on more immigrant workers than he could usually afford, as long as he agreed to provide certain benefits, including structured wage bonuses, housing upgrades and additional training opportunities. Those benefits were written into his and other farmers’ contracts with the Department of Labor, for which the USDA would reimburse expenses.

As of June, Bennett has spent over $50,000 of his own money, partly so that he doesn’t violate the contract terms. Certain violations could result in penalties ranging from fines to no longer being able to hire immigrant labor. Without the USDA’s repayment, Bennett’s cost of labor has risen higher than any previous summer.

The Department of Labor did not respond to requests for comment. A spokesperson for the USDA said the program remains under review.

“It’s been incredibly frustrating,” Bennett said. “You’re contractually obligated to do something for one federal agency that’s being paid for by another one, who says we’re reviewing it and, ‘We’ll let you know.’ Meanwhile we just got to keep expending funds to meet these commitments, unsure whether we’re going to get reimbursed or not.”

Bennett’s concerns are repeatedly echoed by others in group threads between the 140 grant recipients. Farms across the country have lamented the loss of funds and lack of communication.

“We all really only have one question about the money,” said Steve Groff, who runs Cedar Meadow Farm in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. “Where is it?”

Farmers reported receiving mixed signals from government officials about whether the program was even frozen. But in early May, several farmers said a USDA official told them the program’s potential connection to diversity, equity and inclusion efforts, and alleged fraud, led to its pause.

Weeks later, other farmers claimed to hear the program was not paused during a public Q&A session on May 20 with Erin Morris, the new head of the government’s Agricultural Marketing Service. In one email posted to the group, a USDA employee said staffing cuts caused payments to stall.

Rider expected her Cecil County farm to get the first installation of her $100,000 grant in winter. In preparation, she invested in upgrading worker housing and bringing in more laborers than previous years.

But until June, Rider couldn’t even get on the program’s portal to ask questions or record her expenses. She’s not sure how much longer her farm can operate without the reimbursements.

When farmers applied to the project in 2023, Rider said, USDA officials pitched it as a way to help smaller businesses bring on seasonal labor through the H2A visa program. The recruitment and government fees associated with the program are costly, especially for smaller farms that run on tight margins and don’t have consultants to help expedite the process.

In Maryland, where H2A hourly wages at $17.96 are higher than most other states, the toll can be especially difficult.

“It’s about time they try to make it into a better system,” said Les Richardson, who operates Richardson Farms in White Marsh. He was promised $400,000 by the program this year and has yet to receive the funds. He has relied on H2A visas for labor for 20 years and says he doesn’t know a farm that can survive without it.

Rachel Micah Jones, who runs the Baltimore nonprofit Centro de los Derechos del Migrante, spent her career advocating for immigrant laborers. She was initially happy the new USDA program would ostensibly pay to improve worker treatment.

This administration has made immigration enforcement a priority, she said. Micah Jones doesn’t understand why they would stop a program helping farms hire workers through the visa program.

Micah Jones and her organization subcontracted with the USDA in January to bring Know Your Rights trainings, which the program required farms participate in, to farmworkers throughout the mid-Atlantic. She expects to do her last training in Maryland this month. The contractor who hired her team, an organization known as Alianza Nacional de Campesinas, is also waiting for money from the USDA.

One Maryland farmer, who declined to be named for fear of retaliation from the government, said she’s always wanted to bring in immigrant workers. Her farm could never afford, leaving her and her family scrambling to keep up, until this program came along.

But now waiting for reimbursements has forced her to decide between continuing with the program or bankrupting her farm. So, as of June, she’s decided not to move forward.

She can’t keep paying for the $2,000 rental house she promised to buy for workers, or the recruitment fees, travel costs and trainings. And she has no idea if she’ll get in trouble for stopping.

“We just don’t have that money,” she said.

“It’s funny because when this all started, this program was going to save us.”

This story has been updated to clarify the status of groups waiting to be paid for Know Your Rights trainings.