After more than a year, effort to update Virginia’s migrant labor camp rules moves forward

RICHMOND, Va. (WRIC) – After 455 days, the office created by Gov. Glenn Youngkin to “streamline regulatory management” finished its review of a notice to change Virginia’s outdated rules for migrant labor camps. The notice approved by Virginia’s Office of Regulatory Management and the governor’s office on Nov. 15 isn’t the new regulations advocates say are desperately needed for the thousands of migrant workers who play essential roles in Virginia’s agricultural and fishing industries. It’s just part of the first stage in a three-stage process to update the rules, which haven’t been thoroughly reviewed in over 20 years and were recommended to change in 2022. Virginia’s rules for these camps aim to ensure migrant workers live in safe and healthy conditions while at the camps, setting standards for general maintenance, water supply requirements and other guidelines. The 455-day gap between the start of the review and approval of the notice – known as a Notice of Intended Regulatory Action (NOIRA) -- is far longer than recent notice reviews by the regulatory management office, per an 8News analysis of 86 regulatory actions that underwent NOIRA reviews. READ MORE: Youngkin’s office holds up changes to Virginia’s outdated migrant labor camp rules On average, the 86 NOIRA reviews took the Office of Regulatory Management about 27 days to finish, per 8News' review. 8News asked the Office of Regulatory Management and the governor’s office for an interview about the review process. The regulatory management office did not respond. Gov. Youngkin’s spokesperson, Christian Martinez, referred 8News to the Virginia Department of Health, which enforces the regulations on migrant labor camps. A VDH spokesperson shared a statement simply describing the regulatory process. “Immediately after the Office of Regulatory Management and the Governor's office approved the Notice of Intended Regulatory Action (NOIRA) to amend migrant labor camp regulations, VDH submitted it for publication in the Register of Regulations,” the spokesperson wrote. “When it’s published, a 30-day public comment period will open.”    Thousands of migrant workers in Virginia – people who pass seasonally from one place to another for work – live in the hundreds of labor camps across the commonwealth at any given time in a year. 8News Investigates: Inspections find no water, no beds – and rats – at Virginia’s migrant labor camps Virginia’s health department adopts and enforces the rules to ensure safe and healthy living conditions for migrant workers and their families during their time in Virginia. According to Virginia law, migrant labor camps are one or more structures “reasonably” near each other that are used as living quarters for agricultural or fishing industry workers, including those working in food processing. The camps can be buildings, tents, barracks, trailers, vehicles, converted buildings or even “unconventional enclosures of living space,” per state law. When 8News covered the regulatory management office's pending review at the 424-day mark, the governor’s office did not respond to multiple requests for an interview. Despite city code, Richmond’s government watchdog reports haven’t been posted in 5 years 8News made a Freedom of Information Act request for records of documents, communications and more on the regulatory management office’s review from July 1 until the request was fulfilled. On Oct. 25, the governor’s office said the records were being entirely withheld, citing a sweeping FOIA exemption covering “working papers and correspondence of the Office of the Governor.”   “The volume of documents being withheld is slightly less than a Redwell folder and includes multiple duplicates,” Denise Burch, a FOIA officer for Youngkin’s office, wrote in an email. After a follow-up asking for descriptions of the records, Burch said it was “approximately 350 pages” of “the proposed regulation and summaries thereof, correspondence and media inquiry.” This first stage is when the public is informed that a change is being considered. The stage will be published on Dec. 16 and a 30-day public comment period ends Jan. 15, 2025. Comments during that time will be reviewed as the proposed regulations are developed. 17 reports from Richmond government watchdog detail embezzlement, forgery and other rule violations The proposed amended regulations are then approved by the overseeing agency and submitted for an executive branch review, which includes the regulatory management office. The proposal is shared publicly for a 60-day comment period. After this, the final stage begins as the overseeing agency considers public comments and adopts the final regulations. It then gets vetted by the executive branch before a 30-day final adoption period begins. Reeve T. Bull, the director of the Virginia Office of Regulatory Management, recently touted the office created by Youngkin “as a model for other states looking to reform and modernize their r