Republican presidential candidate Scott Walker has followed frontrunner Donald Trump to the right on immigration in recent weeks, and in doing so he may have alienated one of the biggest industries in his home state of Wisconsin.

Since weighing up and then announcing his run for president, Walker has shifted to the right to appeal to Republican primary voters on an issue that Trump’s explosive candidacy has ensured has become central to the race. In doing so, he may cause problems for the dairy industry in Wisconsin, which generates $50bn a year for the state’s economy and relies heavily on labor from immigrants, many of whom are in the United States illegally.

In 2013, two years before the Wisconsin governor declared his candidacy for the White House, Walker told his constituents that he supported immigration reform that would allow what he described as hard-working migrants to make their homes in the US. In a state where 40% of dairy farm labor hails from abroad, this approach helped him win re-election in 2014.

However, as a presidential bid drew closer, Walker shifted his position in response to growing pressure from Republican activists who oppose anything which they consider “amnesty”.

In February, before joining the race, Walker was asked if his position on a path to citizenship had changed since 2013, and replied: “Absolutely. I look at the problems we’ve experienced for the last few years. I’ve talked to governors on the border and others out there. I’ve talked to people all across America. And the concern I have is that we need to secure the border. We ultimately need to put in place a system that works. A legal immigration system that works … I don’t think you do it through amnesty.”



Walker has also come out in support of a lawsuit to end Deferred Action for Parents of Americans and Lawful Permanent Residents (Dapa), an Obama administration immigration policy currently blocked by the courts that would provide a temporary legal solution for the undocumented parents of children who are US citizens, allowing the parents to stay with their families.



Ending this program would make those parents more vulnerable to deportation, and increase the risk of breaking up immigrants’ families.

He also said he backed Trump’s call to build a wall between the US and Mexico, emphasizing again that he had changed his position from 2013, when he said: “You hear some people talk about border security and a wall and all that. To me, I don’t know that you need any of that if you had a better, saner way to let people into the country in the first place.”

Further confusion over Walker’s stance on immigration has been caused by his recent comments on birthright citizenship – another issue Trump has pushed to the fore. After initially telling MSNBC he agreed with Trump that automatic citizenship for anyone born in the US, as guaranteed by the 14th amendment, ought to be removed – “Yeah, to me it’s about enforcing the laws in this country” – he backtracked and said he was “not taking a position on it one way or the other”.



Asked directly on a subsequent occasion whether he wanted to repeal or alter the 14th amendment, he said no.

This shift on immigration policy has caused a backlash from some in the dairy industry, with some saying the governor’s new positions would threaten their livelihoods if he became president..

John Rosenow owns a dairy farm with roughly 1,000 cows in Buffalo County, Wisconsin. In a state with nearly 10,000 dairies, Rosenow’s operation is one of the largest, and he has no illusions about what would happen if Walker’s positions took effect. “Of course, his proposals, as he mouthed them, would put us out of business, and it would put most dairy farmers in the state out of business.”



Currently, half of Rosenow’s 20 employees come from outside the United States. He says that most of them come from the same area in the state of Veracruz, Mexico.

This dependence on immigrant labor is one reason the Wisconsin Dairy Business Assocation has repeatedly taken a positive stance on immigration reform. Unlike much other agricultural work, which is seasonal, dairy farming requires year-round, daily attention since the cows have to be milked twice daily. As a result, most agricultural visas do not fulfil dairy farmers’ needs.

Milwaukee immigration attorney Eric Straub, who provides consulting for the Professional Dairy Producers of Wisconsin, said he estimates that 75% of the immigrant laborers on dairy farms are undocumented. A report released last week by the Migration Policy Institute, a non-partisan research organization focusing on migration issues, estimates that 76,000 Wisconsin residents lack valid immigration papers and that 48,000 work outside the home.

For Straub, these figures tie in to a larger, industry picture. “One in 10 jobs in Wisconsin is tied to the dairy industry, so they have a significant political influence if they choose to have it.”

The 980m pounds of mozzarella made in Wisconsin each year buttress the nation’s frozen pizza industry, which is estimated to produce $3.5bn in annual revenues, and Nestlé, which holds nearly 45% of the frozen pizza market, produces all of its pies in Wisconsin.

Some of the 500 dairy cows at Sunburst Dairy farm in Belleville, Wisconsin. One in 10 jobs in the state are said to be linked to the dairy sector. Photograph: Darren Hauck/Reuters

The disconnection between Walker’s new positions on immigration and the state’s business interests may be one of the reasons fuelling dwindling support for the governor at home. A recent Marquette University poll found that while Walker leads the race for the Republican presidential nomination in Wisconsin, 57% of state residents polled disapprove of the job he is doing as governor.

In July, José Flores, an undocumented parent of US-citizen children, publicly confronted Walker in Iowa over his Dapa stance during a campaign stop, in an incident that attracted media attention.

Flores is not alone in his critique of the governor’s attempt to win conservative support by moving to the right.

He is a member of Voces de la Frontera, a Milwaukee-based immigrants’ rights group that has led unionization drives and fought Wisconsin’s tough new voter ID law, perceived as disproportionately affecting people of color.

Mario Ramirez, an organizer with the same organization, said: “For me, his policies are super-racist towards the Hispanic community. More than anything else, his policies are too corporate, and they only favor the interests of the corporations, which want slaves and have no use for anything else.”

Walker’s campaign did not respond to emails from the Guardian requesting comment on the impact his stance on immigration would have on Wisconsin’s economy or for clarity on his current stances on key immigration issues.

The state’s chamber of commerce, Wisconsin Manufacturers and Commerce, which has worked closely with Walker on policy issues in the past and has been criticized for coordinating with him, also declined to comment on the issue.

After years of watching the governor at work, Straub is cynical. “Governor Walker is a consummate politician, and he plays this issue for the particular election that he’s targeting. Now he’s decided that he needs the Tea Party votes that are so important in Republican primaries these days.”

Trump, says Straub, is “really exposing the hypocrisy of career politicians like Governor Walker”.