Americans warned of grocery prices shock

Sure, but it’s more in the “no ethical consumption under capitalism” kind of way rather than anything specific about the exploitation of the undocumented migrants. Exploitation goes into almost everything around us, and it’s something we have to deal with and work to improve unless we want to completely disconnect from modern society.

Just scanning the room around me, I wonder what the full labor history looks like in the value chain that produced my TV, the phone in my hand, my computer parts, the shirt on my back, AND the food in my kitchen.

If some of the farm labor that went into my food was from an undocumented immigrant that really wants to stay in this country and keep his or her job, I am not happy about the set of circumstances, but I also don’t want to rip that person out of their community and send them somewhere they do not want to go.

We tried to resolve this with legislation and the right wing crazies killed it each time. It's not like the average Democratic voter wants an undocumented underclass. The business interests do. And the GOP leadership gets to fund raise on the caravans.

Most Americans want a better life for these people. Step one isn't to spend a trillion dollars to deport them all.

Absolutely! But at the same time, it highlights the income inequality the majority of Americans are experiencing.

Leadership, yes. I would argue it is intentional. Citizens... well, clearly not some half of the electorate.

for sure. but maybe the losses would be less if they rolled out a 12 month plan to get papers for everyone instead?

100% this.
I'm not a fan of the hamfisted way Trump and Musk are going about all this.
But at the same time, I look at this and have to wonder the outcome...
If agricultural corporations can't hire cheap undocumented Latin American people to work the farms, they will have to pay more to hire Americans to do the same job. Yes that will drive up grocery prices, but on some level, if that means more Americans are able to afford those groceries isn't that sort of maybe a good thing?

Every time I see a company complain of labor shortage, it is obvious to me that the problem isn't labor the problem is the company doesn't want to pay what the labor market demands. You tell me you can't find anybody to hire, so I ask if you offered $100/hr for this job would your inbox be overflowing with applicants? If the answer is yes, then the problem isn't that you can't find anybody, it is the supply and demand of the labor market and your only problem is you don't want to pay the market rate for labor. That's not the market's problem.

Keep in mind, the current gov isn't just interested in "illegal" immigrants, but any non white people they can figure out a way to deport.

Many nurses are here on work visas.

According to this document from 2021, most of them are "assistants" and "aides" of various types, although it seems there are a few thousand registered nurses and other licensed healthcare providers and technicians. Maybe they get licensed on a visa and then overstay the visa?

Also Home Health aides, orderlies and other non licensed positions

I can't speak to every politician, but as a class, they seem to be elites that are disconnected from the average American.

AOC, having been a normal person, is able to bring the message that gets through to people without having it filtered through some sort of communication agency.

I fear for her safety, to be honest...

I just listened to Jeffries on Jon Stewart’s podcast and it was all of the same old generalities.

Especially after Stewart's recent interview with her.

that's exactly why the establishment limits her movements. she's a threat to schumer and pelosi's stranglehold on the money pipelines. what schumer and pelosi either don't realize, or don't care about, is they're who the ultraradical right want dead first. they showed us as much on january 6th, 2021

Given how clearly she's stood up since day 1 here, I wouldn't be surprised if she's the first target for Trump's Window-Pushing Squad

Sooner or later, the idiot is gonna take the biggest chapter from Putin's book.

Seriously. They all said they felt better than before but the dude barely said anything worthwhile. So disappointing it's the exact same hand wringing bullshit where they say "we just need to get the message out" instead of actually doing shit differently. Jon really did try to get more out of him but he stayed on message like 80% of the time like a true politician.

She will never be allowed anywhere close to real power for the same reason they've kept Bernie from power for decades.

The big money and corporate donors to the Democratic Party would never allow someone like AOC or Bernie to lead the party.

And they'll blame Democrats. And the Democratic Party won't combat the misinformation because they suck at messaging.

Reminder, losing a large purchasing segment decreases demand, which lowers prices until the market adjusts. I.e., it frees up agricultural output that they have to sell, which they'll lower prices to make sell to other buyers (domestically or internationally).

The consequences of trump will have residual effects. The damage cannot be undone in one fell swoop. The country is a big boat and it takes a long fucking time to change directions even if you immediately start steering it the other way.

Then there's the whole topic of friends and allies wondering if we can be trusted in the long term. Why make deals with us if we're gonna just elect a stupid asshole who will reneg on anything and everything that isn't immediately beneficial to that specific person? A lot of countries likely considered drastic changes to policy with us, but decided to hold off until the 2020 election, and then breathed a sigh of relief when we didn't reelect the dipshit. Fast forward four short years and see that we went back to the dipshit despite all obvious, available information saying that only a fucking moron who is trying to summon the end of the world would allow such a thing; would you trust a country that elected trump, took a break from him, and then elected him back in again? This really isn't about lackluster democrats and their performance in elections; would you want to make long term plans with a person who was so chaotic? Denmark won't forget us openly considering taking Greenland by force. Panama won't forget us talking about taking the canal. Canada won't forget us talking about annexing them. The EU won't forget the tariffs. Mexico won't forget the deportations. We're alienating ourselves, burning through all of our political capital like trump burns through every business venture. He will fuck every relationship up and the dollar will be fucking worthless as a result if he doesn't just fucking stop.

I legitimately have zero clue what the country and the world in general look like four years from now, but I can tell you that it will be bad and the bleeding will take years to stop and decades to heal. Even if this stopped today, Pandora's box is open. If trump died on the toilet today, vance would continue what's happening.

The entire line of succession isn't even the problem. The experiment is over. Oligarchs and their pet autocrat run everything and they're not interested in what you have to say about it. If they decide to just suspend all elections and appoint all elected offices and consolidate all power to the executive, what can really be done to stop it? It would take a revolution, but the bastard cops have fucking tanks with which to kill us all. No other country will come to help us because our military is far more advanced than all others and we're geographically very easy to defend. Our own country has us by the balls and the twisting is just getting started.

I wish I could be so optimistic as to believe that things could be okay in four years. A lot of people will be deported and/or killed before then, so even if it did end up being okay for you or me, that's still gonna be too late for them.

"If" someone reverses those policies. There are still policies created by Trump from 2016 that have not been reversed.

How much could an egg cost? 10 dollars?

Should be criminal

How can he sleep at night knowing he's selling us out to fucking China and Russia. They are salivating at our demise.

Stop giving Trump a heads up on his mistakes

Can't get rid of him if we keep preventing his fuck ups for him

I think you're overestimating how much he listens to or cares for what the public thinks. He surrounds himself with yes-men and people beaten into submission. As long as they're going to keep telling him that his policies are making America great, he'll keep doing both whatever dumb shit he thinks of and executing the plans Putin and the Project 2025 authors give him.

In a sane world that would work.
I don't think that's the world we're in anymore.

I think the question is to deport them or not. And if they had it better where they were they probably wouldn’t have left.

It's just good rhetoric. Many people voted for trump because they somehow thought he'd make things more affordable for them. Pointing out that he's doing the opposite is good. It also gives self-interested people a reason to care about immigrations issues.

You know what a "false dichotomy" is? If no, this is a beautiful example. Immigration reform is an entire world of options, "deport all the brown people" and "open borders and free subsidized piñatas for everyone" aren't the only options like you're presenting here.

I'm concerned that illegal immigrant labor is akin to H1b or prison labor, where the worker has diminished rights and is abused more than other groups.

Did it occur to you that even with the diminished rights and abuse, they still chose to immigrate? And that they still wish to stay?

You're not protecting them by deporting them. If you want to protect them and help the economy, give them a path to citizenship so that they can continue to work essential jobs while receiving the labor protections of citizens that - oh, whoops. Those protections are being threatened too. Almost like the people doing the deportations have no interest in protecting people and are actively harming them.

I can't speak for others, but I learned a few years ago that the immigration process is difficult and expensive. Trump made this significantly worse during his first term.

We wouldn't have so much illegal immigration if the barriers weren't so high.

I don't disagree with you, and I think that's why people call for immigration reform. We need to look at what we want to do about immigration as a nation.

One thing I've never understood from democrats perspective is that there is a reason to control how many people can immigrate to ensure the country can support those people.

What I've never understood about Republicans is why go after the immigrants and not the companies hiring their labor. Make the penalties brutal for hiring illegal immigrants and youll solve many issues with immigration.

but I’m struggling to find a reason we shouldnt deport illegal immigrants.

Are you specifically concerned about illegal immigration, or just immigration in general? Because if it's the former, that's a silly distinction because the government (we the people, aka Elon Musk) decides what is illegal or not. If the next wave of politicians decides we should have actually open borders, then there would be no such thing as "illegal immigration".

I’m concerned that illegal immigrant labor is akin to H1b or prison labor, where the worker has diminished rights and is abused more than other groups.

Do you have specific examples in mind where immigrants are exploited? If you do, look at those examples and ask yourself: "could we pass laws to protect these people from abuse?", and you'll find that the answer is obviously yes.

Maybe your definition of "abuse" is that they need to work harder to earn less? Well, that's the society we live in. Capitalism has its problems, but it has worked good enough for us for the past 248 years. For the immigrant, US minimum wage is likely far better than whatever they received in their home country, and I suspect most would happily take that deal. I think that's what they'd call "the American dream", as their children will be able to go to school and have a better future than they did.

...If your issue is with immigration in general, then I don't know what to tell you. That's entirely opinion based, and nobody knows what the correct answer is (despite what they might claim). 100% open borders has risks, 100% closed borders has risks.

Multiple studies have shown that illegal immigrants commit crime at a lower rate than citizens, and have a positive economic benefit to the country. Shouldn't the question be why you don't want them here? Shouldn't you just want reform to get them documented and then move on with your life instead of supporting these hateful policies?

In the hope they become legal, productive members of society. Would that not help all parties involved?

Because to even reach the house floor those bills would have to go through Republican controlled comities. That wouldn't even gum up the works, they would simply be ignored. So she focuses her efforts on education people on what is really going on, instead of what the corpo news outlets are spewing.

Anyone in the federal legislature can introduce legislation that dies in committee. How exactly would that help? Its not effective obstructionism for a small committee to just ignore your bills every time. Most bills never even get a vote.

You are not proposing an effective strategy.

You do realize that the foods we are going to have a crisis over includes literally all the stuff you eat instead of meat too right

I am no vegetarian but I rarely buy meat, because I can make a succulent meal without meat. I enjoy the occasional BBQ but cooking with tofu and other protein replacements is just so much cheaper and healthier than buying shitty meats on the regular. Just enjoy the occasional, high quality meat