U.S. farm industry groups want President-elect Donald Trump to spare their sector from his promise of mass deportations, which could upend a food supply chain heavily dependent on immigrants in the United States illegally.
So far Trump officials have not committed to any exemptions, according to interviews with farm and worker groups and Trump’s incoming “border czar” Tom Homan.
Nearly half of the nation’s approximately 2 million farm workers lack legal status, according to the departments of Labor and Agriculture, as well as many dairy and meatpacking workers.
“The only moral abortion is my abortion”.
“The only moral undocumented workers are my undocumented workers”
Notice a pattern here?
They’re not looking at the big picture. When child labor laws get repealed they can hire 10-year-olds at the same cost as undocumented workers. Having 10-year-olds running heavy farm equipment also mitigates abortion bans on the back end.
Don’t forget the blacks. The blacks will be jailed for being black and then they we have slavery with extra steps!
Hey now it won’t just be black folks, all sorts of non white shades of people will be arrested to work the fields against their will. Hell there will probably be some whites in there too, the ones infected by the ‘woke’ can’t be allowed to roam the streets spreading their blasphemy
No, they are. They’ll just use the immigrants they round up as actual slave labor.
Tough shit. You fucks voted for him, this is what you get. You’d think farmers of all people wouldn’t need to be told “You reap what you sow” but here we fucking are.
U.S. Representative John Duarte, a Republican and fourth-generation farmer in California’s Central Valley, said farms in the area depend on immigrants in the U.S. illegally and that small towns would collapse if those workers were deported. Duarte’s congressional seat is one of a handful of close races where a winner has yet to be declared. Duarte said the Trump administration should pledge that immigrant workers in the country for five years or longer with no criminal record will not be targeted and look at avenues to permanent legal status.
Wow, it’s almost like when faced with the consequences of your profoundly cruel and destructive rhetoric, suddenly some form of tempered, compassionate approach seems like a good idea. 🙄
Assholes.
They’re admitting to using slave-like labor to generate their profits. It goes well beyond rhetoric.
So, I do think what they’re doing is shitty, and the way our government handles undocumented farm workers is shitty and immoral, but I also think it’s not quite right to call the arrangement “slave-like”.
The workers are getting paid, and they’re getting paid enough to make them willing to violate immigration law, and in the case of undocumented migrant workers enough for them to enter the country and travel around it, often returning to the same places to work again.
It is very much exploitative and taking advantage of the worse economic situation elsewhere and their willingness to eschew what we consider basic worker protections.
Equating the arrangement to slavery creates the impression that it might be worth it to crack down hard to alleviate the moral injustice of the entire arrangement, despite the impact it will have on everyone involved.
A better tactic that relieves the gross injustice without hurting the people being wronged or ourselves is to make it easier for farm workers to enter the country in a safe way that allows them to benefit from the protections we believe workers should get, as well as the services we provide, like WIC. Amnesty, a path to legal residency or the citizenship process, and a harsher crackdown on businesses that look to bypass those protections.
Even the workers don’t want the arrangement to end, which tells me we need to bolster the protections they’re missing, not end the system entirely.
Even the workers don’t want the arrangement to end,
Children in coal mines also didn’t want child labour to end.
I understand what you’re saying and under strict definitions it isn’t slavery. By the same token people working in sweatshops in Southeast Asia don’t fit the definition. Yet colloquially the word is still being used. I think because some of us think that freedom and compensation aren’t as much of a line in the sand as it appears at first glance. You could say that slaves in the US were compensated with food and shelter, and that they didn’t feel the deal was bad enough to mount a rebellion. I don’t think we should determine what the lowest standard for labor is by what some people seem to be okay with. Especially if those people aren’t given an easy path to organize. I’m not saying that’s what you’re saying. I’m merely exploring why I use the term.
BTW we have a lawful system for all of this in Canada. Working conditions aren’t great. Farmers and large corporations are happy to exploit workers in ways that Canadians aren’t willing to accept. Even when it comes to natural born citizens, deplorable working conditions have historically been common prior to workers organizing and literally fighting for better.
🤷
Duarte said the Trump administration should pledge that immigrant workers in the country for five years or longer with no criminal record will not be targeted and look at avenues to permanent legal status.
Bwah hah hah! Sure, that’s something that’s going to be coming out of trump’s mouth.
whoch relies upon them being here illegally
Wait what? Ok yeah if the system cant handle paying living wages then yeah fuck those farmers. People still dont deserve to get deported though
Undocumented people who are paid cash don’t pay income tax, social security, or Medicare. That allows them to be paid considerably less money, which keeps food costs down nationwide.
And cheap, plentiful food is absolutely essential to the US. Its political stability has always been tied to the economics of farming.
The Civil War was absolutely about slavery, but it was also about economics and food security. The South depended on slavery to keep prices low. There were millions in the South who didn’t own slaves and knew slavery was wrong, but were so afraid that the economic impact from losing the free labor would prevent them from putting food on the table that they were willing to kill to keep the evil institution alive.
Look at all the most politically turbulent periods in American history (turbulent as in people were at or near to mass violent revolt), and you’ll find food insecurity.
A hungry crowd is an angry mob.
So the US has worked HARD to keep food cheap. While there are people in the US who struggle with proper nutrition and may not know where their next meal will come from, you don’t have many people literally starving to death. Food can always be found somewhere. For now.
Now we have an incoming administration that’s threatening the food supply. And unlike 1861, there’s no “greater good” to justify it. Trump just wants to deport the cheap labor specifically to hurt immigrants because he’s fucking evil.
If he goes through with this insanity, crops will rot in the field and grocery prices will quadruple while the prices of imports also skyrocket from tarrifs. We have some really hard days ahead.
I mean if the US will starve unless they suppress wages then… I didnt want to eat this week anyways
It’s not the suppression of wages as much as it is an effective tax break for the poor achieved through hiring undocumented immigrants and paying cash. By not withholding taxes, the workers are effectively being paid 30%+ more for their labor.
The solution, once again, it to tax the wealthy more to provide relief to everyone else.
Folks, here’s what’s happening: fiefdoms and minor lords are the final goal of the GOP. Farmers will have workers who are protected from deportation as long as they are in the farmer’s good graces. Likewise, H1B visas already operate like this - as long as you are loyal and useful you are protected from the sanctioned cruelty of the justice system.
Right wing thought does not care or support democracy. They don’t want people to be free so much as “free”. They want to control other people. It doesn’t matter what the laws are when it comes to themselves - they exist outside that system. They have their own country club system. The right wants petty tyrants.
