This article was originally published by Law360 on October 8, 2025.
The Trump administration recently agreed to vacate a major immigration regulation put out by the Biden administration.[1]
The regulation set wages for farmworker visas under the H-2A agricultural worker visa program.
By agreeing to vacate the rule, the Trump administration completed its rollback of the Biden administration’s major regulatory changes to the farmworker visa program.
The way in which the Trump administration vacated the rule illustrates a powerful tool that new administrations have used to roll back their predecessor’s accomplishments: refusing to defend the rule in court.
The vacatur of the final rule also points to the next step in the ongoing fight over universal injunctions.
Reversal of Biden Administration Changes to H-2A Visa Program
Farming is one of America’s strongest industries. But American farms have an Achilles’ heel: They depend on foreign labor.
Congress created the H-2A visa program to enable American farms to meet their labor needs. The program allows temporary, nonimmigrant visas to be issued to foreign workers wishing to come to the U.S. to do agricultural work.
The Biden administration made two big changes to the H-2A program. In 2024, the Biden administration issued the Farmworker Protection Rule, which aimed to provide union-style protections to H-2A workers.[2] The rule suffered several setbacks in litigation, and different parts of it were enjoined in different states.[3]
Because the injunctions created a confusing patchwork of regulations, the Trump administration suspended its enforcement in June.[4] Thus, the Trump administration unwound one of the Biden administration’s major H-2A regulations.
The Biden administration’s other big H-2A initiative changed the methodology for calculating the wages owed to H-2A workers. A 2023 regulation changed the formula for calculating the adverse effect wage rate.[5]
The AEWR wage rate is designed to stop an influx of foreign workers from undercutting the wages and working conditions of American farmworkers. The AEWR says to farms: You may bring in foreign workers only if you continue to pay American workers the same.
The new rule aimed to increase the wage that farms would pay certain types of skilled agricultural workers, such as truckers, supervisors and construction workers.[6]
The new H-2A wage rule was also challenged. During the Biden administration, two courts refused to enjoin the regulation: the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Florida in Florida Growers Association Inc. v. Su in 2023, and the U.S. District Court for the Western District of North Carolina in USA Farm Labor Inc. v. Su in 2024.[7]
But in September 2024, in Teche Vermilion Sugar Cane Growers Association Inc. v. Su, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Louisiana took issue with the rule and partly enjoined its enforcement.[8]
The court found the rule was arbitrary and capricious because it focused solely on the type of equipment used by sugarcane truckers and failed to consider the broader question of whether the truckers with H-2A visas were employed in similar jobs as American workers.[9]
The court enjoined enforcement of the rule only for the Teche Vermillion plaintiffs.[10] The rule remained in effect for everyone else.
This year, the Trump administration apparently determined to get rid of the new H-2A wage rule. Seizing on the earlier injunction granted in Teche Vermillion, the federal government declined to oppose the Teche Vermilion plaintiffs’ motion to vacate the rule, and on Aug. 25, the district court granted the unopposed motion.[11]
Critically, even though the court’s preliminary injunction was limited to the parties in Teche Vermilion, the vacatur was universal, completely eliminating the wage rule.
In just eight months since the inauguration, the Trump administration had unwound both of the Biden administration’s big changes to the H-2A program.
A Questionable Method of Changing Policy
Our court system is designed to be adversarial. One side presents a claim, and the other side defends against it. A judge sits in the middle to determine the outcome of disputes. But in the Teche Vermilion case, the plaintiffs, defendants, and judge collaborated to swiftly vacate a regulation.
Under the Accardi doctrine, once an agency has issued regulations, those regulations are binding on both the agency and the public.[12] To rescind a regulation, an agency must go through the rulemaking process laid out in the Administrative Procedure Act.[13]
The agency has to publish the proposed rule and must usually give the public an opportunity to comment on it.[14] This requires a lot of work, so it is tempting for a new administration to search for workarounds.
The Teche Vermilion case illustrates one such workaround: Simply concede to litigation challenges.
The Trump administration saved itself the hard work of having to do a new rulemaking by leveraging a district court’s power of judicial review.
This vacated the rule immediately, without going through the notice-and-comment rulemaking process.
This method of changing policy is questionable. It bypasses the normal rulemaking process and deprives the public of the opportunity to comment on the new rule or challenge it in litigation. If the administration wants to change a regulation, it should do the work itself. Agencies should make regulations using the rulemaking process created by Congress, not improperly leverage judicial review to bypass the rulemaking process.
Administrations from both parties have used this tactic sparingly to undo a predecessor’s work. Most prominently, in 2021 the Biden administration withdrew its appeal of a 2020 order by the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Illinois vacating the first Trump administration’s public charge rule in Cook County Illinois v. Wolf.[15] The rule required immigrants to provide detailed financial documents to show they would be self-sufficient.
Since administrations from both parties have used this tactic, it is not a partisan issue. Rather, it is about the integrity of the rulemaking process.
If the government stops defending a regulation to avoid the normal rulemaking process, courts should consider two safeguards.
First, a court may remand the matter to the agency to engage in rulemaking.
Second, a court may appoint an amicus curiae to provide an independent assessment of the government’s request to vacate a regulation.[16]
Next Step in the Fight Over Universal Injunctions
The Teche Vermilion case also provides clues to the next step in the fight over whether courts can issue universal injunctions.
Typically, an injunction’s scope is limited to the parties to that particular lawsuit. In June, the U.S. Supreme Court held in Trump v. Casa that courts may not issue universal injunctions, which go beyond the parties to prevent the government from enforcing a law or policy against anyone.[17]
But courts can still accomplish similar results through other means. First, courts can grant classwide relief in class actions.[18] Second, courts can vacate an agency’s actions under the Administrative Procedure Act.[19]
Some scholars have anticipated that those two carveouts may now come under attack.[20] Teche Vermilion confirms those fears.
In Teche Vermilion, the U.S. Department of Justice expressed its opposition to universal vacaturs under the Administrative Procedure Act. But a reading of the plaintiff’s motion for entry of a final judgment dismissing the case, filed on Aug. 21, indicates the DOJ was willing to put that objection aside long enough to accomplish the administration’s policy goal of vacating the H-2A wage rule.
The motion contains a footnote stating the DOJ’s position that “the APA does not authorize a court to vacate an agency rule, and that if vacatur is an available remedy, then like all equitable remedies, such relief must be subject to traditional equitable limitations, including the principle of party-specific relief.”[21]
But the footnote goes on to say that the DOJ was putting that objection aside in the Teche Vermilion case.
The DOJ apparently intends to oppose vacaturs. However, the DOJ’s objection to vacaturs was not so strenuous to prevent it from putting that objection aside to vacate this particular regulation.
Thus, the public can expect the government to raise the issue in the appellate courts, while perhaps being flexible in certain cases.
Mark Stevens is a member at Clark Hill PLC.
The author represented some of the plaintiffs in USA Farm Labor Inc. v. Su.
The opinions expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of their employer, its clients, or Portfolio Media Inc., or any of its or their respective affiliates. This article is for general information purposes and is not intended to be and should not be taken as legal advice.
[1] Teche Vermilion Sugar Cane Growers Ass’n Inc. v. Chavez-Deremer, No. 6:23-CV-831, 2025 WL 2472461 (W.D. La. Aug. 26, 2025).
[2] Improving Protections for Workers in Temporary Agricultural Employment in the United States, 89 Fed. Reg. 33,898 (Apr. 29, 2024).
[3] Kansas v. U.S. Dep’t of Labor, 749 F. Supp. 3d 1363 (S.D. Ga. 2024); Barton v. U.S. Dep’t of Labor, 757 F. Supp. 3d 766 (E.D. Ky. 2024); Int’l Fresh Produce Ass’n, v. U.S. Dep’t of Labor, 758 F. Supp. 3d 575 (S.D. Miss. 2024).
[4] Donald M. Harrison, III, Acting Administrator, Wage and Hour Division, U.S. Department of Labor, “Field Assistance Bulletin No. 2025-2,” June 20, 2025, https://www.aila.org/dol-
suspends-enforcement-of-2024-farmworker-protection-rule-for-h-2a-workers.
[5] Adverse Effect Wage Rate Methodology for the Temporary Employment of H-2A Nonimmigrants in Non-Range Occupations in the United States, 88 Fed. Reg. 12,760 (Feb. 28, 2023).
[6] Adverse Effect Wage Rate Methodology for the Temporary Employment of H-2A Nonimmigrants in Non-Range Occupations in the United States, 88 Fed. Reg. 12,760, 12,775 (Feb. 28, 2023).
[7] USA Farm Lab., Inc. v. Su, 694 F. Supp. 3d 693 (W.D.N.C. 2023), aff’d sub nom. USA Farm Lab., Inc. v. Micone, No. 23-2108, 2025 WL 586339 (4th Cir. Feb. 24, 2025); Fla. Growers Ass’n, Inc. v. Su, No. 8:23-CV-889-CEH-CPT, 2024 WL 1343021 (M.D. Fla. Mar. 29, 2024). The author represented a group of plaintiffs who also challenged the H-2A wage rule in USA Farm Labor, Inc. v. Su (dismissed Sept. 29, 2025).
[8] Teche Vermilion Sugar Cane Growers Ass’n Inc. v. Su, 749 F. Supp. 3d 697 (W.D. La. 2024), opinion clarified, No. 6:23-CV-831, 2024 WL 4729319 (W.D. La. Nov. 7, 2024), and amended, No. 6:23-CV-831, 2025 WL 1969937 (W.D. La. July 16, 2025).
[9] Teche Vermilion Sugar Cane Growers Ass’n Inc. v. Su, 749 F. Supp. 3d at 729.
[10] Teche Vermilion Sugar Cane Growers Ass’n Inc. v. Su, 749 F. Supp. 3d at 736.
[11] Teche Vermilion Sugar Cane Growers Ass’n Inc. v. Chavez-Deremer, No. 6:23-CV-831, 2025 WL 2472461 (W.D. La. Aug. 26, 2025).
[12] United States ex rel. Accardi v. Shaughnessy, 347 U.S. 260 (1954); Fed. Defs. of New York, Inc. v. Fed. Bureau of Prisons, 954 F.3d 118, 130 (2d Cir. 2020) (“Under deeply rooted principles of administrative law, not to mention common sense, government agencies are generally required to follow their own regulations.”).
[13] 5 U.S.C. § 553.
[14] 5 U.S.C. § 553.
[15] Cook Cnty., Illinois v. Wolf, 498 F. Supp. 3d 999, 1011 (N.D. Ill. 2020) (vacating public charge rule); Texas v. Cook Cnty., Illinois, 141 S. Ct. 2562 (2021) (describing DHS’s voluntary dismissal of its appeal of the vacatur).
[16] United States v. Adams, 777 F. Supp. 3d 185, 203 (S.D.N.Y. 2025) (describing how the court appointed an amicus curiae to advise on the United States’s motion to dismiss criminal charges against New York Mayor Eric Adams, to “assist [the court] with its decision-making via an adversarial process.” (quoting ECF No. 136 at 3)).
[17] Trump v. CASA Inc., 606 U.S. 831, 837 (2025).
[18] Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831, 849-50 (2025).
[19] Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831, 847 n10 (2025) (“Nothing we say today resolves the distinct question whether the Administrative Procedure Act authorizes federal courts to vacate federal agency action. See 5 U.S.C. § 706(2) (authorizing courts to ‘hold unlawful and set aside agency action’).”); Trump v. CASA, Inc., 606 U.S. 831, 873 (2025) (Kavanaugh, J., concurring) (Perhaps “a district court (or courts) will grant or deny the functional equivalent of a universal injunction—for example, by granting or denying a preliminary injunction to a putative nationwide class under Rule 23(b)(2), or by preliminarily setting aside or declining to set aside an agency rule under the APA.”).
[20] Mila Sohoni, “Trump v. CASA and the Future of the Universal Injunction,” July 2,
2025, https://www.scotusblog.com/2025/07/trump-v-casa-and-the-future-of-the-universal-
injunction/ (anticipating that the federal government will complain “when a district court
judge certifies a nationwide class, grants an APA vacatur or stay, or issues a broad
‘complete relief’ injunction.”).
[21] Teche Vermilion Sugar Cane Growers Ass’n Inc. v. Su, No. 6:23-CV-831, ECF No. 86, Motion for Entry of Final Judgment at 4 (W.D. La. August 21, 2025).
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