Arkansas Democrat Hallie Shoffner, a sixth generation farmer seeking to unseat Sen. Tom Cotton, said illegal alien farmworkers are so valuable that she would trade five American workers for one of them.
Shoffner made the comments during the Sept. 9 episode of Free Arkansas with host Andy McNeill.
The Senate candidate was promoting [1] her version of “working-class” politics in a state that has not elected a Democrat to the Senate in more than a decade, according to Breitbart.
“Every farmer will tell you at one point, we did, or still do, employ undocumented immigrants, and it’s absolutely ridiculous that these folks are being rounded up because they’re hardworking people,” Shoffner said.
“They’re some of the best people we know, and honestly, we’d trade five Americans for just one of them because of how hard they work.”
Shoffner also questioned why illegal alien workers lack a legal pathway to remain employed in the United States.
“We pay them well,” she said, while also noting that they spend money and have family in the country.
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Conservative activist Laura Loomer drew attention to the clip and described Shoffner’s position plainly: The Arkansas farmer was putting illegal aliens first.
The candidate’s remarks fit with years of arguments that American agriculture depends upon foreign born workers, including legal guest workers and illegal aliens.
EXCLUSIVE VIDEO
Arkansas Democrat US Senate Candidate Hallie Shoffner @hallieshoffner [2] Supports the Abolishment of ICE and Said Illegal Aliens Are “Central to America’s Communities”
Arkansas Democrat United States Senate candidate Hallie Shoffner @hallieshoffner [2] is an… https://t.co/FdOX9TrPus [3] pic.twitter.com/ND1D9sxdPa [4]
— Laura Loomer (@LauraLoomer) July 3, 2026 [5]
During a January 2026 appearance on the District 3 Podcast, Shoffner said she “grew up in an immigrant community” because farmworkers around Newport “were generally from Mexico and Honduras.”
She added that many were undocumented and said she learned Spanish.
In a September 2025 interview, Shoffner called the H-2A guest worker program “how farmers get labor.”
She also complained that American agriculture had reached a point where it relied on foreign born labor.
Shoffner said her farming operation brought in five Mexican workers who returned year after year.
When the Department of Homeland Security began inspecting housing provided for H-2A workers, she suggested the government did not want farmers to have access to labor.
Her involvement with immigration issues predates her Senate campaign.
After graduating from the Clinton School, Shoffner ran Seis Puentes, a nonprofit organization based in North Little Rock.
A May 16, 2012, Arkansas Times profile titled “Mi casa es su casa” examined her work at the organization.
Shoffner said the center helped Latinos, including those without legal papers, “navigate American systems” and sought to “engage them in the process.”
Shoffner again criticized Department of Homeland Security inspections in August 2025, when she said Arkansas farms used the H-2A Agricultural Visa Program to recruit foreign born workers from Mexico and South Africa. She questioned why federal officials had begun inspecting H-2A housing.
“My only thinking is they don’t want farmers to access labor, they don’t want farmers to be successful, they don’t want farmers to grow food, and we are going to be a country reliant on others to feed us,” Shoffner said.
Her advocacy has also connected agriculture with climate change.
In 2020, Shoffner called climate change a threat to “my business, my way of life, and the legacy I will leave for my son: the farm,” while warning of droughts, torrential rains, stronger storms, and difficult growing seasons.
Shoffner has criticized the Trump administration and the Department of Government Efficiency over changes affecting agricultural initiatives. In April 2025, she listed
“Farm to school programs (cancelled by DOGE), SNAP access at farmers markets (cancelled by DOGE), Local processing facilities (threatened by tariffs), Support for women- and BIPOC-owned farms (cancelled by Trump)” as elements of what she called “the true path to health in rural America.”
Race has also figured prominently in Shoffner’s agricultural activism.
Discussing three black farmers in a 2024 profile, she said, “As a society, we pretty much did everything possible to ensure that Black farmers did not become prosperous farm families.”
Shoffner further argued that “women and minority farmers who live on the margins of the industry at large are deserving of a first shot at the specialty rice industry.”
Her campaign now brings that record, along with her blunt comparison between American and illegal alien workers, before Arkansas voters.