July 7 (UPI) — About 30 faculty or staff from scores of Hispanic-serving U.S. universities met Monday at the U.S. Department of Agriculture as part of a nearly 30-year-old fellowship program to learn more about policy and other issues.
The White House had ended the program during Donald Trump‘s first days back in office this year.
USDA officials welcomed some 30 faculty and staff members to Washington, D.C., from Hispanic-serving colleges and universities in the United States. The institutions are in locations as diverse as Puerto Rico, California, Texas, Illinois, Arizona, New Mexico, New Jersey and New York. The participants welcomed to Monday’s event are part of the department’s 2025 class of E. Kika De La Garza Education, High School and Science Fellowship program.
“The EKDLG Fellows came to Washington, D.C., to learn how USDA services and programs can benefit them, their students and their communities,” officials said in a release.
More than 500 Hispanic-serving colleges and universities currently serve more than 2 million students in the United States, according to the department.
However, in January the program was suspended by the Trump administration but reinstated only after a coalition of Democratic lawmakers led by Sens. Alex Padilla, D-Calif., Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Michael Bennet, D-Colo., demanded that USDA to reverse course.
In addition, the department, likewise, suspended scholarship programs in February for students at historically Black schools while officials reviewed it.
But the EKDLG fellowship pullback posed “a significant threat to our nation’s interests and security,” the San Antonio-based Hispanic Association of Colleges and Universities said in February on behalf its more than 560 global partners.
“Hindering the program is an exceptional risk to our country’s interests and security, given the current and pressing national priorities for increased expertise in the agricultural sector’s workforce and improved food production and safety,” the group wrote.
The program is named after the late U.S. Rep. Eligio “Kika” de la Garza II, a Texas Democrat who served as chair of the House Agriculture Committee from 1981-1995.
Nearly 450 participants have taken part in the weeklong fellowship program since 1998 to meet with USDA officials and other agency leaders in a bid to learn more about national and regional agriculture issues, policy-making and other newly relevant research.
“USDA’s partnership with HSIs plays a vital role in establishing a collaborative relationship and creating a nationwide network of educators working with USDA to help grow the next generation of the American agricultural workforce,” lawmakers wrote in a letter to U.S. Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
The program’s goal, according to the department, is to “strengthen relationships” with Hispanic-serving or otherwise largely Spanish-speaking educational institutions.
Trump administration officials now say that USDA recognizes how Latino and Hispanic educational entities “are at the forefront of building and sustaining the next generation of the food, agriculture, natural resources and human sciences workforce.”
This week’s program arrives on top of unprecedented and controversial raids by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents on American farms, businesses, churches and other places now threatens the U.S. food supply chain.
“To develop agricultural leaders in both the public and private sectors, Hispanic-serving institutions must take positive steps to engage and create partnerships to build capacity,” Dr. Lisa R. Ramírez, director of USDA’s Office of Partnerships and Public Engagement, stated Monday.
Meanwhile, following their weeklong visit to the nation’s capitol, the 30 E. Kika De La Garza fellows are slated to spend an additional week with “top scientists” from USDA’s Agricultural Research Service.
