Trump’s immigration plans are already wrecking the food industry
Trump’s immigration plans are already wrecking the food industry
Immigrant farm workers are too scared to show up to work.
Summary
Donald Trump’s aggressive immigration policies, including heightened ICE raids, are disrupting the U.S. agricultural sector.
In California’s Central Valley, a key food-producing region, undocumented farm workers—over half the workforce—are staying home out of fear, leaving crops like citrus unharvested.
Bakersfield saw up to 75% of workers absent, sparking concerns of economic devastation and rising food prices.
ICE is also targeting sensitive areas like schools and churches after rolling back Obama-era protections.
Experts warn these policies could lead to widespread economic repercussions.
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Then they should hire Americans
They've tried. They can't abuse American workers the way they do immigrant workers.
So should we allow immigrants in illegally so they can be abused?
We should institute an agriculture work visa that includes a Spanish language lesson on their rights and go after the corporations that make them work in the fields while pesticide is being sprayed.
This is brilliant. Absolutely this should be a thing.
Then no one would hire them
Well they have to hire someone if they want to make money. If they throw us into a food crisis because we won't let them abuse people then we'll just nationalize the fields.
Okay, now you’re just trying to turn me on.
I wouldn't be turned on by that. America can legally use prison labor as slave labor.
So put a gun to their head and steal it
Yeah, you're right. We should just abuse the ones already here by putting them in concentration camps- oh wait, that's the plan!
No the plan is to deport them
Where do you think they will put them before they can be deported? You do realize they can't just stick them on a plane, right? Deportations have to be negotiated, and the country might not want to take them back. So they need to concentrate them in a camp or camps until such time as they can deport them. If they can ever be deported.
I'm pretty sure there's a term for a camp where people are concentrated. What do you think that term might be?
Prison, where criminals are kept
Which prison has room for the 20 million people Trump is planning to deport? Please name it.
Lol they're not gonna keep them all in one place at the same time
So you think that Trump's plan, despite his claim, is to put a few people who have overstayed their travel visa in prison at a time? With rapists and murderers? How do the people who get imprisoned get chosen?
And you do know that prisoners can legally, as per the 13th amendment, be used as slave labor, right?
And you're okay with all that, are you? Slaves getting raped for the crime of staying in a country too long?
And then there's the legal asylum seekers that Trump is also planning on deporting... guess their slavery and rapes are okay too?
You should look up what Stephen Colbert did in 2010.
There was an organization that would take any American that wanted to be a farm worker, and connect them with local farms. Even paid decently, better than a lot of wage slave jobs. Not genuinely good, but like $15/hour back then.
As Colbert testified about it to Congress, "Please don't make me do this again. It is really, really hard." Americans really don't want to do it.
This isn't even the first time produce has rotten in the fields due to a Trump immigration threat. I distinctly remember reading about tomatoes rotting on the vine in the deep south, probably around 2017.
All that means is that $15 an hour over the course of a growing season is not enough to support a family and put down roots.
The very concept of "migrant" labor is flawed - its dehumanizing and precarious. People need a means of supporting themselves year around.
Not only do agricultural corporations need to accept slimmer profit margins and higher wage expenses, but an entirely new support structure is required to maintain the workforce in agricultural communities during the off seasons.
Seasonal work needs to be paid as year round work, people have migrated to get work for millenia. If folks were paid properly then this wouldnt be a problem. Hell my 2x great grandfather took great advantage of this by building up a team of seasonal workers who would always come back, also one of them was paid in guns which he then smuggled into Ireland for the revolution.
Georgia, when they implemented the LiveScan law around 2011. I was there.
Edit: Shaka, when the walls fell.
No I don't listen to Colbert
Explains why you’re so uninformed and uneducated.
Lol yes because I didn't listen to a Democrat propagandist
In another comment, I noticed you mention the “hunter’s laptop” fiasco in a way that indicated you’ve fully bought into it.
I’m not too sure you really should be throwing around the “propagandist” accusation at people when you clearly watch Fox News- I mean. Fox… Entertainment.
I don't have cable
That doesn’t surprise me at all.
You can pay what you want the average American is not willing to do farm work because they got educated and want to use that education. Picking berries or whatever in the hot sun for 12h isn't it. Until you start paying so much you raise prices 10x or more and that doesn't work when you're in a globalized economy, no one is going to pay $80 for strawberries when they can get them for $8.
More so these workers need to be regulated and that requires some form of legality and documentation.
the average American
is not willing to do farm work because theygot educatedOh, this won't be an issue for much longer. 😎
/s but not really
All part of the plan...
That should help grocery costs go down, right?!?
Oh right, we should allow them in the country illegally so they can get slave wages to pick cotton... I mean do ag jobs
No, we should make the process for naturalization reasonable and set honest expectations for cost of living.
honest expectations for cost of living.
And how would you do that?
Statistics, history, systemic research, epidemiological inferences, consult and trust experts in the relevant economic, agricultural, and socioeconomic trends. Ya know…normal stuff that’s has been available for ages, but largely ignored in favor of inflammatory hyperbole.
How Britain almost solved the housing crisis
Spoiler alert: begging and shoving money to the for profit house building industry is not the solution.
I know that, I'm not for subsiding housing
You're sure doing hard work in this thread today... Speaking of fair wages, I hope you're paid handsomely for your efforts.
Otherwise you're just a fool for shilling for capitalism for free.
Yeah you own me $100
They are gonna arrest them, put them in prison and sell them as slaves back to the restaurant. You been living under a rock?
No they're gonna deport them
I’ll take that bet
K
No, we should allow all immigrants. Open the border. I'm not kidding. There can't be illegal immigrants if they're all legal.
That's what's been going on the last 4 years lol
It literally hasn't.
It literally has
So they're all here as legal citizens? No risk of deportation?
Under Biden yes
Yeah, okay buddy
K buddy
Pretty sure the idea is to use prison labor.
Even California, liberal strong hold, loves slave labor and voted to keep it recently. We are just terrible and we have low standards.
