Let me just point out that losing 5% of the workforce like that will make inflation skyrocket, because we’ll have to increase wages on a lot of jobs done for shit pay by undocumented migrants. (Should those jobs pay well now? Of course. But they don’t.) You think houses are expensive now? Just wait until construction grinds to a standstill because there’s no laborers available. Groceries cost too much? Guess who is working in those fields?
Again: we should be paying those people fair wages now. But without significantly raising those wages, which will also raise the cost of the goods they currently produce, you aren’t going to get many citizens to do the jobs.
EDIT: one of the larger inputs for produce is labor. If we had to pay labor for picking, cleaning, and sorting produce $20/hr (which is the floor that I’d consider semi-acceptable for that kind of work), you would end up seeing a lot of prices rise sharply in the grocery store, particularly because we simply can’t automate most of that. And believe me, companies are trying, because they won’t want to pay the slave wages that they do now. If you had to pay all construction workers at least $20/hr–which is below the acceptable rate, IMO–housing costs would have to rise to accommodate the cost of the labor. Lots of restaurants still use undocumented labor; they’d have to increase menu prices. And so on, and so forth. We, all of in the US, benefit from the poor treatment of undocumented migrants, and it’s largely invisible to us.
that will probably happen, but it’s actually just rich people pocketing the made up price increase while waiting for poor people to be desperate enough to work for the same low wage as the lost workers
I mean, yes, but also no.
For that to really work, you need a labor surplus, i.e., more workers than jobs. As long as there are more jobs than workers, workers are incentivized to hop jobs to get better pay, perks, and working conditions. It’s in the best interest of the capital-owning class to keep a certain level of the population unemployed so that there are always more workers than jobs; that allows them to pocket more of the value that the workers are adding, because the workers have less leverage to negotiate better wages.
But when you suddenly lost 5% of your workforce, and they’re jobs that are physically demanding (and in the case of construction, are a genuinely skilled trade), then capital-owning class doesn’t have the leverage over workers. That’s especially true when the capitalist can’t easily move operations to an area with cheap labor; if you’re a contractor, you’re going to operate where there’s demand for construction, not where there’s cheap labor. An e.g. contractor can’t just not build; they lose money by sitting on land, or on equipment that isn’t being capitalized.
He’ll do it, ICE will happily carry it out & SCotUS will back them. If you think they won’t, you’re either dangerously stupid or lying to yourself.
If you’re not a billionaire or a White, Christian Male, you’re a fucking moron if you vote for anyone aside from Joe Biden in the upcoming election.
Yes, you too.
No they won’t do it. The logistics of sending everyone out of the country is too hard.
Instead, they’ll build concentration camps and ovens and call it a day.
Not sure how sarcastic you are, but I could see work camps being built. I think we’d see some deportations and some people sent to work camps, but not a complete crack down. Just enough to make it a threat.
It’s not just the logistics of moving that many people that is a problem. It would be extremely damaging to the economy. Undocumented labor makes the food we have as cheap as it is (along with government subsidies). If that labor pool evaporated we’d see more widespread issues with food rotting before being picked and food not getting processed.
The work camps would take the form of farms and food processing plants, possibly expanding to other manufacturing later. Free slave labor is how we’d compete against the slave labor in other countries. It’s important to note that managing that takes up a lot of resources, so I’d expect the majority to not be rounded up and sent to these camps. I’d expect the threat of being sent to a camp to be used to extract lower pay and more hours out of the existing undocumented population that works in those industries.
Having these populations still intact would be useful to instigate more crackdowns as political events to provide a boost.
The main problem with these camps (and existing populations) is that people have kids even under the worst circumstances. That is why we’re seeing the talking point to remove/overturn birthright citizenship. Eventually the camp population would be almost entirely us citizens which makes things less tenable. So they’d need to remain different so it’d be okay for them to stay in the camps they were born into.
Undocumented labor makes the food we have as cheap as it is (along with government subsidies). If that labor pool evaporated we’d see more widespread issues with food rotting before being picked and food not getting processed.
The GOP has literally already done this with those exact effects in Florida, Alabama & Georgia. The farmers I know collectively lost millions. Other farmers had to sell out to BigAg, which was just a bonus knock on effect for these ghouls. I’d bet dollars to donuts that the lion’s share of these double digit Haley / GOP protest voters in Red states are in the Ag sector, or some other industry directly damaged by Trump’s misrule.
But that is kinda the point of fascism. As long as they have power they do not care about people.
Just when you think he can’t be stupider he opens his mouth again.
I swear, if it was up to Democrats and the Left, anyone and everyone could just live here whenever they want. Trump is talking about deporting ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS. Only in the United States is this so controversial. Go to any country on Earth, and try to live there without becoming a citizen, and see how long you last. Democrats seem to think the country will fall apart and blow itself up without illegals…
I swear if it was up to Democrats and the Left, anyone and everyone could just cross the road whenever they want. I am talking about killing JAYWALKERS. Only in the United States is this so controversial. Go to any country in Earth and try to cross the road without a marked crossing and see how long you last. Democrats seems to think the country will fall apart and blow itself up without Jaywalkers.
Legal immigration in the U.S. is heavily restricted with extremely low caps that aren’t even high enough to support our agriculture industry. I personally think this is on purpose so that industry can easily underpay and exploit undocumented workers. And yes, the economy would collapse without the all the undocumented workers; the “age” of our population is quite high. Here’s an article from a very conservative think tank (which I normally wouldn’t trust) that describes the situation: Why Legal Immigration Is Nearly Impossible.
Anyways, it’s futile trying to stop immigration. Desperate people will take desperate actions to improve the lives of themselves and their families. It will only get worse as the climate changes causes drought, famine, and otherwise unlivable conditions in parts of the world.
Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Unless they don’t jump through all the right arbitrary legal hoops, in that case fuck 'em.
That’s how you keep unemployment numbers down.
This is how Russia makes sure the 2028-29 harvest in the USA fails.
They aren’t going to stop using food as a weapon and this is one of our weak points.
