A GOP lawmaker supported an immigration crackdown. Her husband paid a price.

A GOP lawmaker supported an immigration crackdown. Her husband paid a price.

The situation cost Idaho state Sen. Glenneda Zuiderveld and her husband most of their income and highlights an escalating split in the party.

Today at 6:00 a.m. EDT
By Karin Brulliard

TWIN FALLS, Idaho — The call came as Tom Zuiderveld was driving last month, just minutes from his home on five verdant acres of Southern Idaho’s agricultural heartland. It was his district manager, relaying that three of the dairies he sold synthetic oil to had refused to continue working with him.

Zuiderveld felt blindsided — he had known the dairy owners for years, and the accounts represented 80 percent of his income. But it wasn’t about his performance, the manager explained on the phone and in a later email. It was about the politics of Zuiderveld’s wife.

Glenneda Zuiderveld is a Republican state senator and member of a far-right bloc that was pushing for strict immigration laws. Idaho’s dairy industry, which powers the economy of the Magic Valley region anchored by Twin Falls, depends on foreign-born labor and fiercely opposed the measures.

~snip~

The schism illustrates a caustic split in Idaho’s Republican Party, in which Glenneda Zuiderveld’s hard-right wing regularly breaks with more traditional GOP members, often over spending but also immigration. That divide reflects an escalating national fault line among Republicans over whether President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown should spare no mercy for agriculture and other businesses that depend on unauthorized foreign-born labor or, as the White House has signaled, approach them with leniency and even new forms of work permits.

More at:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2026/05/04/idaho-dairy-farmers-immigration-zuiderveld/