The ‘wackadoodle’ foundation of Fox News’ election-fraud claims

Trump legal advisor Alina Habba was trashed by critics and lauded by MAGA after she “cracked the case” of former President Joe Biden’s “fake oval office” in a video she posted Tuesday. “You guys, I just finished a show. Look at the room that they put me in,” Habba said in the clip, panning around […]

By Hazel Velasco Palacios, Penn State and Kathleen Sexsmith, Penn State

“I had never worked with mushrooms before,” Luis said, reflecting on his time in Chester County’s mushroom industry. “But my family has always worked in agriculture, so I like it. I’m used to hard work.”

Luis, whose name is a pseudonym to protect his identity, is part of the latest wave of immigrant workers who have, for decades, come to Chester County to work in Pennsylvania’s US$1.1 billion mushroom industry. He is a Venezuelan migrant who was granted Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, under the 2023 designation. TPS allows foreign nationals already in the U.S. to remain for six, 12 or 18 months – regardless of how they entered – if their home country is deemed too dangerous for them to return.

In February 2025, President Donald Trump terminated TPS for Venezuelans who received protection under the 2023 expansion. According to the Department of Homeland Security, this designation had allowed approximately 348,000 Venezuelans to remain in the U.S. legally, with many eligible for work authorization. Meanwhile, Venezuelans who were granted TPS under the earlier 2021 designation can retain their status until Sept. 10, 2025. This provides temporary relief but leaves their long-term status uncertain.

We are rural sociologists – a Penn State professor and a Ph.D. candidate – who study labor, migration and agriculture in the U.S. Our research examines how industries such as mushroom farming maintain a stable workforce. One of us recently published an article in the peer-reviewed journal Rural Sociology that highlights how Pennsylvania’s mushroom industry was already struggling with a labor shortage.

The termination of TPS for many Venezuelans, along with President Donald Trump’s broader immigration policies – including stricter border enforcement, increased deportations and tighter restrictions on work permits and asylum protections – will likely shrink the pool of available workers in Pennsylvania’s mushroom industry and other agricultural and food industries.

Kennett Square, Pa., bills itself as the ‘mushroom capital of the world.’

Nolabob/Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA

Changing face of the mushroom workforce

The mushroom industry in Pennsylvania has been shaped and sustained by major waves of U.S. immigration since the late 19th century.

William Swayne, a Quaker florist, is credited with beginning mushroom cultivation in Kennett Square, a small borough in Chester County, in the 1880s.

However, it was Italian immigrants, who began arriving in the early 20th century, who transformed Kennett Square into the “mushroom capital of the world.”

Today, Pennsylvania produces 69% of all mushrooms sold in the U.S.

According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Chester County alone produced 199 million pounds of mushrooms – mostly white button mushrooms – in the 2023-24 season. While Chester County remains the hub of production, mushroom farms also extend into adjacent Berks County and parts of northeastern Maryland.

Yet, workforce instability remains a pressing issue, as the industry has struggled for decades to recruit and retain workers.

Mushroom picking is physically demanding. Workers in humid, enclosed growing rooms carefully harvest delicate mushrooms by hand to prevent bruising. Pay is structured around a piece-rate system, where earnings depend on speed and productivity. While this model allows some workers to earn more, it also creates instability, as take-home pay fluctuates based on harvest conditions and market demand. These factors make it difficult to maintain a stable workforce.

As a result, mushroom production in Pennsylvania is highly dependent on immigrant labor. While there are no national statistics tracking the nationalities of workers in the industry, our empirical studies and ongoing field research indicate that most of today’s workers are from Mexico and Guatemala. In recent years, more have arrived from Venezuela and elsewhere.

Many of these newer arrivals have entered the U.S. through programs such as TPS and the Processes for Cubans, Haitians, Nicaraguans and Venezuelans, or CHNV. CHNV allows certain people from those four countries who have a sponsor in the U.S. and who pass a background check to live and work in the U.S. for two years. It was established to grant temporary work authorization to individuals fleeing crises in their home countries.

TPS and CHNV have been instrumental in addressing labor shortages in essential U.S. industries such as agriculture.

At the same time, the long-standing Mexican mushroom workforce is undergoing a generational shift and aging out of field labor. Their U.S.-born children sometimes work harvesting jobs in their teens but are unlikely to stay in agriculture long term.

Rise of mushroom labor contractors

To fill employment gaps, many mushroom farms now turn to labor contractors to recruit, manage and employ workers.

Contractors typically handle payroll, workers’ compensation and access to medical care if someone is injured.

On the surface, this system offers benefits for growers. It allows them to adjust their workforce depending on demand while reducing administrative burden and liability.

But for workers, this system can be a double-edged sword.

Evidence from other agricultural industries shows that workers hired through contractors may have less job security, fewer or no benefits, and less direct contact with farm owners – which makes it more difficult to negotiate wages or report workplace concerns.

Some Kennett Square farmworkers we have interviewed see contractors as a source of flexibility.

“I had to miss work for some weeks because my kid was sick, and I lost my spot,” one worker shared. “But then I reached out to a contractor and was able to get another job at a different farm within a day.”

However, that same worker went on to say that this new farm “has wider harvesting beds, and I am getting more tired and have more pain because of it.”

In other words, while labor contractors provide continuity in employment, workers may have less control over where they are placed or the conditions they work under.

For growers, contractors serve as an effective stopgap to keep mushroom farms in operation, but they do not solve their ongoing problem of attracting long-term employees.

Fewer workers, more expensive mushrooms

With fewer workers, mushroom farms may struggle to meet the demand from grocery stores, restaurants and food processors.

A reduced supply could mean customers pay more for mushrooms at grocery stores and restaurants. If retailers must source mushrooms from other states or abroad, prices could rise further due to transportation expenses, tariffs and supply chain disruptions.

Without policies that recognize the industry’s year-round labor needs, Pennsylvania mushroom growers will be left scrambling for alternative workforce solutions.

Lawmakers have attempted to address this issue through the Farm Workforce Modernization Act of 2021, which passed the House but stalled in the Senate. If enacted, the bill would create a Certified Agricultural Worker status, which would offer legal protection to experienced farmworkers, and expand H-2A visa eligibility to agricultural workers in year-round jobs such as mushroom farming. The bill also includes a mandatory phase-in of E-Verify for agricultural employers, a federal system used to confirm workers’ legal authorization to work in the U.S.

For now, mushroom farms – and the broader agricultural sector – must prepare for the ripple effects of more rigid immigration restrictions. Without intervention from policymakers, the strain on workers, growers and consumers is likely to intensify.

Read more of our stories about Pennsylvania.

Hazel Velasco Palacios, Ph.D. Candidate in Rural Sociology & Women's, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Penn State and Kathleen Sexsmith, Assistant Professor of Rural Sociology, Penn State

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

French police have arrested a young man on suspicion of attacking a rabbi in broad daylight, a prosecutor said Sunday, shocking the Jewish community and prompting a wave of condemnation.

The attack against the Rabbi of Orleans, Arie Engelberg, happened as he walked with his nine-year-old son from synagogue on Saturday afternoon in the city, about 110 kilometres (68 miles) south of Paris.

Engelberg told BFM television that his attacker asked if he was Jewish. "I said yes."

"He started saying 'all Jews are sons of...," he said, adding that he wanted to film him with his phone as he hurled insults.

"I decided to act and I pushed his telephone away," the rabbi said. His attacker then "started punching and I protected myself", he added.

Engelberg said the suspect bit him until several people stepped in to help, he told the channel.

"I'm OK, thank God, my son, I'm getting better and better. We've had an enormous amount of support."

Police were checking the identity of the person in custody since he did not have documents on him when he was detained, Orleans prosecutor Emmanuelle Bochenek-Puren said.

Another source with knowledge of the case said the suspect arrested on Saturday night was known under at least three identities, one Moroccan and two Palestinian.

- Shaken -

France is home to the largest Jewish population outside Israel and the United States, as well as the largest Muslim community in the European Union.

On that date, Palestinian militant group Hamas launched a cross-border attack in Israel, resulting in the death of 1,205 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on official Israeli figures.

Israel's subsequent military offensive on Gaza has killed more than 50,000 people, the majority of them civilians, according to the health ministry in the Hamas-run occupied Palestinian territory. The United Nations deems the figures reliable.

Andre Druon, a Jewish community leader in Orleans, said there had not been any incident in Orleans since October 7, 2023 "apart from some graffiti" before the "very violent" attack on the rabbi.

He said the rabbi was profoundly shaken when he recounted his ordeal to the community on Sunday.

Yann Dhieux, a locksmith, told AFP he had intervened with his arms wide and helped stop the assault, but that it was shocking to see the rabbi attacked in front of his young son.

Some 300 people gathered at the Bastille square in Paris to denounce the attack following an appeal by a Jewish students' association, and a silent march is planned for Tuesday evening in Orleans.

President Emmanuel Macron voiced solidarity with the rabbi's family and all French people of Jewish faith.

"Anti-Semitism is a poison," he wrote on X.

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said he was "shocked" by the attack and called for "zero tolerance for anti-Semitism".

France witnessed some 1,570 anti-Semitic acts last year, the interior ministry says. They made up 62 percent of all acts of hatred on the basis of religion.

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© Agence France-Presse