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.
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……………
It’s amazing how many citizens line up for jobs once the illegals are gone…
https://rpwmedia.com/mass-deportation-works-american-workers-rush-to-fill-jobs-once-taken-by-illegal-aliens-in-nebraska/
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.”
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.
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.
I want the Mexicans deported and the owner arrested………
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.
You’re right that both the undocumented worker and the employer are breaking the law. But pretending they’re equally responsible — or equally powerful — ignores reality.
I don’t disagree that the U.S. isn’t legally required to accommodate industry with a temporary labor system — but the fact remains: our agriculture sector relies on labor that Americans aren’t lining up to do, even at higher wages. That’s not a liberal trope. It’s an economic dependency that’s been consistent for decades.
The real question is whether we want a functioning system that reflects the demand — or a broken one we pretend we can moralize our way out of. Right now, we’re punishing the workers and looking away from the exploiters — and no one wins in that scenario.
“Our agriculture sector relies on labor that Americans aren’t lining up to do, even at higher wages.”
And that is another lie you keep repeating even though I and others have shown you that it is untrue.
Keep repeating that DNC sourced lie that we need undocumented workers to keep our farms working. You know and I know that it is a falsehood. The farms need it to keep their labor costs low….And the DNC needs it to bolster their voting base.
2 examples of the falsity of your repeated statements. You can find many others if you bother to look:
https://www.wsj.com/business/meatpacking-american-workers-immigration-d6bdd47a?gaa_at=eafs&gaa_n=ASWzDAglyyx-6AsOUq2Y-CascNQVVp1XfHun8nIYrGZeFkKLHjSyOFlEGq9P&gaa_ts=685ac002&gaa_sig=3qUs67ssPzkn5yBBYlps2KauET60_6K-Rdk2fb_c7w3Tyc7n62LTUKliWPdPAXx5ABTFEzGXWvxy3DFu1161AA%253D%253D
(This one was in the comments earlier on this exact post….but you obviously didn’t bother to read it:
https://rpwmedia.com/mass-deportation-works-american-workers-rush-to-fill-jobs-once-taken-by-illegal-aliens-in-nebraska/
Every job has a price at which people will be willing to work it. Markets and all that.
If you are going to say everyone else is wrong, at least get your facts straight and stop repeating falsehoods and DNC propaganda.
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!
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.