Don’t feel sorry for these businesses at all

Seems that the agriculture industries and the Dairy farms are having fits because their workforce isn’t showing up because they are afraid f ICE raids.…so the cows aren’t getting milked and the vegetables are not getting picked. Farmers , especially corporate farms, are losing millions of dollars.

I am kinda  glad to see it. If it were not for these businesses hiring (and PAYING) the illegals, they would likely not be here. If the businesses paid more, then they could get US Citizens  to do the work….

 

If they are losing their workforce now, then I really don’t feel sorry for the businesses. Fuck ’em, they were part of the problem.

28 thoughts on “Don’t feel sorry for these businesses at all

  1. The migrants would come up here, pick crops and other farm jobs, then go back home to Mexico or or other countries and live with their families. Trump should let them do their job and go home or food cost will sky rock, while crops rot.

    • The problem is that they DON’T go home.

      Then they expect (and get) benefits.
      INstead of living on the farms for the few weeks while they pick croips, now the invade the towns. THen crime goes up.

      Then they bring their women and kids

      Then they expect citizens rights without acting like citizens.
      Then they bring down local wages.

      Yeah, if they were just guest workers, I might agree with you. But they don’t leave.

      Moreso, if prices go up, that is a cost of doing business.

    • We literally have government programs to import labor that we NEED.
      Let’s just follow the laws……………

  2. I remember going to work circa 1986 having to bring paperwork proving I was eligible to work in America……………..
    Guess we stopped doing that.

    • I remember that. Went to my crew to get their documentation for the office. Asked one of them “Cesar, you got a green card?” He said “Oh, yeah.” Hands me a green card. All that it said was “Fuck you, gringo.”

  3. I agree
    But, if big daddy government wouldn’t pay so much to the free-loader ‘murican; then they would be out there milking those cows.

  4. I understand the frustration — I’ve seen the undercutting up close. I grew up working farms, housing tobacco, and trying to get work where I could. Being a reputable tobacco hand 50ish years ago, I offered to help a farmer who said he had Mexicans working for $1.75 an hour but would pay me $2.50 — I told him the going rate was $3.25, and he just shrugged.

    What struck me then — and still does — is how quick folks were to blame the Mexicans instead of the guy signing the checks.

    • The Mexicans (Or whatever non US-citizens labor) cross illegally. There should be consequences for that.

      The EMPLOYER needs to have big fines, like $1000 per illegal per day kind of fines. Discourage the employment of any non US citizens (or Green Card holder)…such that the fear of being caught way outweighs the cost savings from hiring illegals for peanuts.

      Additionally, if we taxed “Remittances” then the incentive to come here to work (and undercut US citizen labor) would dry up rapidly

      • I actually agree with cracking down on employers — I’ve seen them drive wages down and skirt the law. But without a working legal path for temporary labor, all we’re doing is gutting farms and supply chains without replacing them.

        And taxing remittances? That’s punishing the guy picking lettuce, not the guy cutting corners on payroll. If we want to fix this, we’ve got to hold employers accountable and offer a realistic way for labor to come in when needed.

        Otherwise, we’re not protecting American workers — we’re just pretending the economy doesn’t rely on the people we’re trying to drive out.

        • And the only way to fix that reliance is to drive those illegal workers out…Which will make the employers pay higher wages , market driven wages, for the jobs they need doing, be it picking lettuce or butchering poultry or roofing homes.

          “Legal Path for temporary labor” is Liberal speak for :”We want cheap farm labor that will stay and vote democrat”. What you want are slaves, serfs, cheap labor that you can exploit.

          Taxing Remittances removes some of the incentive to come here illegally and undercut the prevailing wage,

          At no time is bringing in foreign, chap labor “Protecting American workers”. More liberal doublespeak.

          “Gutting farms and supply chains” is, again, Doublespeak for Depending on near slave labor. Change the model instead. Or go out of business, or automate. I don’t care, just get the illegals out of our country so we don’t have to support them and their families while they send money home to their country.

          • You hear bitching from the left, similar to your observations about illegals: “Wal Mart can only pay such low wages, because their employees are on medicaid/foodstamps/section 8/other Big Gov handout! Unfair!”

            In fact, I agree with you. In my view, it is (genuinely) racist, to import untold numbers of illegals, and then provide them with aid benefits that they are, by definition (not being legal residents, nor citizens) ineligible for.

            THEN, benefits intended to assist US citizens out of poverty (Job Corps, medicaid, etctera) are bankrupted by the tsunami of illegals hoovering up all the benefits, while Robert, or Tyrone or Sally or Mavis are on the outside looking in, while Consuelo or Jose live large. And Robert/Tyrone/Sally/Mavis are honest-to-God citizens.

            it is manure. (In the firehall or farmer field pronunciation)

      • You’ve made it clear where you stand, B. I’ve worked these jobs and seen the exploitation — and I’ve also seen how quickly people turn on the worker instead of the system that built the mess.

        If “kick everyone out and let it collapse” is the only acceptable fix, we’re not aiming for the same kind of future. I’ll step back and let your regulars hash it out from here. Be well.

        • I notice you could not address the cheap farm labor need and the exploitation of poor illegal laborers. Nor any of the other liberal doublespeak you presented.

          You are a cheap shill repeating Liberal tropes.

          Be better or be gone.

          • Actually, I addressed the exploitation of undocumented labor directly — it’s central to the issue. I pointed to both employer abuse and the lack of a legal path for temporary labor. That’s not a trope — it’s the reality of the U.S. food supply chain.

            If we want to fix it, we need to stop blaming the workers and start building policy that reflects the actual labor demand. If that sounds ‘liberal’ to you, maybe the problem isn’t the facts — it’s the framing.

            • ‘Tis the illegals that cross the border as much as the employers. Both are breaking the law. They both know they are breaking the law. Both should be punished

              You start from a false premise: That the US is responsible for “Providing a legal path for temporary labor” and then you extrapolate from there. But there is no real reason for that, no legal requirement that we in any way accommodate the farms and other agriculture enterprises or businesses that employ illegals as (effectively) slave labor at reduced wages.

              You assumption that we can’t function without imported cheap labor is false. The rest of your argument then falls flat because it is based on that untruth.

  5. It’s time to penalize the people hiring the illegals! Those laws are on the books, but seldom enforced.

    • ref hiring folks ineligible to work in America: every job I have taken over my lifetime: certainly in the past 40 years, has required me to prove citizenship. Hell, working as a rent-a-clinician, similarly requires that I prove my being possessed of the right to work here. I am puzzled, as likely you are, as well, Mr. B, that anybody can/does work without such documentation being recorded.

      And, as regards perp walking those employing illegals? Hell Yes! I might even watch TV again (briefly) should such parades be televised! Might even be persuaded to subscribe on a pay per view basis!

  6. I did read your links B. One is a valid article showing that some meatpacking companies have made small-scale shifts — mostly in automation or new recruitment — and that’s great. But the article itself doesn’t prove your point; it says some roles have shifted — not that the labor crisis is solved or that agriculture no longer depends on immigrant labor.

    The other link is from a partisan site with an obvious slant — which is fine, but let’s not pretend it’s an objective study.

    You said every job has a price. If that were universally true, we wouldn’t have unfilled agricultural jobs in states that raised wages. But again and again, even when farmers offer $15–$20/hour, they can’t fill these roles with U.S. citizens.

    I’m not defending exploitation. I’m pointing out that demand for seasonal labor isn’t a political slogan — it’s an economic fact. You can find that data in USDA reports, GAO findings, or even Cato’s libertarian labor studies, or, you know, with a quick “Hey Google.” I can help with that if you’re unfamiliar with how it works.

    You don’t have to agree with me. But dismissing a decades-long dependency as ‘a lie’ because it doesn’t match a political preference — that’s not debate. That’s denial.

    • I am amused that you say “I don’t have to agree with you”. Never did have to. The truth is the truth, and you can’t spin that away.

      I find it funny how you gloss over the fact that the meatpacking businesses made accommodations when they needed to, not only in wages but in shifts and equipment when they needed to keep workers, and couldn’t exploit the illegals.

      Which is exactly my point: When they can’t get illegals they can exploit like slaves for cheap wages, they have to raise wages and change working conditions to attract and keep American workers.

      I find it funny that you always refute articles that you disagree with as “Partisan” or “Biased”, but you don’t refute the facts in the articles. At Glenn Valley, it took less than 2 days to fill 76 jobs when ICE raided them. Plus they paid more than they paid the illegals….Partisan or not, those are facts. Fact which refute your claim that no one but illegals will do the jobs. Same thing in nearly every facet of agriculture. Others will do the jobs, just not as cheaply nor under the conditions that the illegals will.

      Same thing with most other jobs that employ illegals. Construction, landscaping/lawncare. etc. Illegals can be exploited for cheaper labor with poorer conditions, but the job CAN be filled if you pay enough to make it worthwhile.
      Your claim is, as I said, lies and propaganda.

      • You’re actually making my point for me — whether you realize it or not.

        I’ve never said Americans can’t do meatpacking or construction work. I said they usually don’t, unless wages rise and conditions improve — which is exactly what you described. That’s not liberal spin. That’s labor economics.

        When ICE raids or labor shortages happen, employers raise pay, adjust shifts, invest in automation — they adapt. Because the previous conditions weren’t enough to draw U.S. workers. That’s not moral panic. That’s market reality.

        But what about crops like lettuce, strawberries, tomatoes, or tobacco? These depend on large numbers of workers for short harvest windows. You can’t automate a lettuce field. And you can’t expect people to quit steady jobs for a few weeks of intense, seasonal labor.

        Even at higher wages, most Americans don’t uproot their lives to live in temporary camps and pick produce in the heat. Not because they’re lazy — because it’s not sustainable.

        That’s why programs like H-2A exist — not to hand out anything, but to fill critical labor needs that the market struggles, and often fails, to meet on its own.

        As previously mentioned, I’ve felt what it’s like to be undercut in the tobacco patch. And I also saw that other farmers — ones not using undocumented labor — were paying better. It wasn’t always greed driving it. Sometimes it was sheer logistics. If you’ve got hundreds of acres of corn or zucchini and a 48-hour harvest window, you need a labor force most towns can’t provide — and few can just pull together.

        I don’t pretend to have all the answers. But “get ’em all out” doesn’t solve the harvest logistics. It doesn’t stop exploitation. And it doesn’t address the market dynamics that make this kind of labor a necessity in the first place. It just shifts blame to the most vulnerable while letting the system that profits from them off the hook.

        You’re angry about the exploitation. So am I. We just differ on how to fix it. You want to punish the workers. I want to change the system that creates the demand for undocumented labor in the first place.

        And I don’t dismiss sources because they’re partisan. I dismiss conclusions that ignore context. Cherry-picked anecdotes don’t erase decades of systemic data. That’s the difference between narrative and analysis.

        • You actually DID say that these are the jobs that Americans won’t do. Once again, DNC propaganda, and a lie. Now you are backtracking.

          As I said, the farmers don’t want any labor, they want CHEAP labor they can exploit….they don’t have to give good conditions or pay to the illegals, but they do have to provide those decent conditions and better pay to workers that can’t and won’t be exploited….I.E Us Citizens. You said otherwise. I also said market conditions would determine pay and working conditions, you said I was wrong.
          Go back and read the comments above. Stop dancing around it. You are lying.

          You can automate a lettuce field, or you CAN pay enough to get people to work them….But these “Temporary Laborers” (Illegals working for exploitative pay and conditions) aren’t H1A, they are straight up illegal border crossers, who don’t pay taxes and who KNOW they are breaking the law and don’t care. Most don’t go home at the end of the season, they stay in the neighborhoods and wait for the next temporary job….Often getting food stamps, driving illegally without insurance, and getting free health care from emergency rooms.

          “Get them all out” isn’t what I said…”Get the ILLEGALS out” is something entirely different. Fine the employers of illegals. Make it so there is no economic incentive to either come here or stay illegally. Not just the farm laborers, but the constructions and lawn care and the housekeepers as well. All of these take jobs from American Citizens at lower wages. I am sorry you wrongly think that they have some right to work, and that they are “The Most Vulnerable”…..they are adults, they make the choices.
          At the end of it, I want people that cannot be exploited, you want slaves in the fields so farmers can make more money.
          YOU want to change the system that “makes undocumented workers needed”…I simply want to make it so that no one dares to employ illegal (what you call “Undocumented”) workers. Such that they don’t come here to begin with. If that is somehow “Punishing them” then you will have to explain how preventing them from coming, or having a reason to come here and to exploit the American Taxpayer by taking handouts and sending money home is “punishment”.

          As for the sources that you called “Partisan” Were the facts presented in the article incorrect? What “context” was missing that changed the fact that when offered a job that illegals had been doing, Local American Citizens jumped at the chance? Please explain how that was missing context? How the facts were in error? If you bother to use google you can find other examples. Your narrative about “jobs no American will do” is a lie, has been for decades, and is one of the largest lies the DNC has told. You can’t dismiss the truth, no matter how hard you try.

          • I noticed you took nearly a full day to respond — which is fine, of course. Nobody lives online. But you were clearly active elsewhere on the blog during that time, so it’s fair to assume the delay wasn’t about time, but about framing a response.

            What came back, though, wasn’t a rebuttal of my actual argument. It was a series of positions I never stated. That’s what disappoints me.

            I never said Americans can’t do agricultural or labor-intensive jobs. I’ve said — consistently — that they usually don’t, at the wages and conditions currently offered. That’s not political spin — that’s labor market behavior. And you yourself acknowledged that when access to exploitative labor is removed, employers adapt. That’s exactly the point I’ve been making.

            I also never said anyone has a “right” to work here illegally. What I’ve said is that the system itself incentivizes both sides — employers and workers — to break or bend the rules. If we want that to stop, we have to fix the system, not just wag a finger at the people responding to its signals.

            I’ve never called for open borders, free benefits, or “slaves in the fields.” That’s not analysis — that’s rhetoric. And when you assign extreme views I haven’t expressed, you’re not debating with me — you’re shadowboxing a character in your head labeled “liberal.” That’s not an honest exchange.

            I’ve worked the fields. I’ve been undercut by farm owners who paid undocumented labor less than me. And I’ve seen others pay fairly and still need more hands than the local labor pool could provide. You want non-citizen labor gone. I want to remove the need for it — because it hurts everyone: the citizen worker, the undocumented worker, and the employer who’s trying to follow the rules.

            You now say you want the illegals out, not everyone, but I’d ask you to revisit your own post from just a few days ago where you said you “want so many people deported that I never have to press 1 for English again.” That sounds pretty sweeping. If I’m misinterpreting, fair enough — but those were your words.

            As for the sources — I never said the facts presented were “fake.” What I’ve said is that conclusions drawn without broader context aren’t persuasive. One anecdote about a meatpacking plant doesn’t overturn decades of data from USDA, GAO, or even the Cato Institute. The question isn’t whether some Americans will take these jobs — it’s whether enough will do them, when needed, under real-world conditions. That’s not a partisan point — it’s backed by numbers.

            Bottom line: I’m really uninterested in winning you over. I just think it deserves some nuance into a conversation that too often trades in binary thinking and blanket blame. I’ve been civil. I’ve been direct. I’ve backed up what I’ve said.

            If that’s unwelcome here, just say the word — no need to ban me, I’ll show myself to the door.

            • I actually spent less than 5 minutes formulating my responses. It isn’t that hard to refute your fantasies about how things are and should be.

              You aren’t that important that I take time from living to respond to you except when I have spare time.
              Sometimes I schedule posts ahead of time so that I can have a regular schedule to posting while still being able to do things in meatspace.

              You really aren’t that important.

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