A federal court in California just ordered the US Department of Labor (DOL) to quickly come up with a new methodology for calculating the Adverse Effect Wage Rate (AEWR) for H-2A job orders, just weeks after the agency released long-awaited new H-2A farmworker rates. Those rates had been calculated under a framework established in an interim final rule, which the DOL issued in 2025 and the United Farm Workers challenged.
