Farmers and the foreign-born workers they hire – legally – to bring in the harvest are unsure what their future holds.

Every August, as the first McIntoshs start growing heavy on his apple trees, farmer Art Kelly looks forward to the arrival of Kelly Orchards’ three long-term employees. He’s known them for decades – one has been picking apples at this Acton orchard for 45 years, predating even Kelly – and they’re so good at what they do that he’s willing to soldier through a boatload of federal paperwork and pay airfare to get them from Jamaica to Maine.

He needs these foreign-born pickers and they need him.