OREFIELD — There are few experiences more quintessentially American than sitting at the table with family and friends on Thanksgiving Day to dine on roast turkey. And if there is a Jaindl Farms turkey on your table, it likely was made possible by foreign labor.

The family-run Lehigh County institution that traces its roots to the 1930s is Pennsylvania's largest single user of a federal visa program for seasonal agricultural workers.

Jaindl's first objective is to hire locally, company President David Jaindl said. To fill the remaining need, the farm uses the H2A visa program.

That program, which last year brought 134,368 farm workers, mostly from Mexico, into the country, is in flux as the Trump administration prepares to put its stamp on the nation's approach to trade, borders and immigration.

Its use nationally has more than doubled since 2012, according to the State Department, and is growing as farmers worry more about immigration crackdowns.

In 2016, Jaindl Farms requested 59 visas for workers between August and December to "perform a variety of duties related to the production of turkeys," according to documents filed with the U.S. Labor Department.

In 2015, Jaindl Farms accounted for 73 out of 777 total guest workers approved under the program for Pennsylvania, according to the State Department. The massive operation processes more than 750,000 turkeys a year and has about 100 year-round, full-time employees.

In recent years, it has become difficult to find local workers for seasonal agriculture work, Jaindl said. The jobs, which pay $11.66 an hour, involve the "de-beaking and growing of turkeys; feeding, watering and cleaning turkeys to be free of feces and straw; catching, loading and unloading them as well as cleaning and maintaining turkey housing," according to Jaindl Farms' visa application.

Federal law requires advertising the jobs to local workers first. Once the number of openings is established, obtaining the visas is a fairly complicated process, Jaindl said. There is a lot of paperwork to complete and workers must be provided with housing and transportation to and from the farm, he said.