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[-] pezhore@lemmy.ml 35 points 8 months ago

Sure, go for it and watch the American agriculture industry suffer. The immigrants (illegal or otherwise) are willing to do the incredibly difficult jobs of working the fields, harvesting difficult food, and so on. Here's a Newsweek article from 2021 that suggests 49% of the agricultural workforce is illegal immigrants [source.].

Those companies make bank by paying their workers under the table and under minimum wage. Maybe we should crack down on the companies hiring illegal immigrants instead of the actual workers?

But, oh right, this is just another case of the GOP looking to hate on the Other and rile up their base

[-] YurkshireLad@lemmy.ca 11 points 8 months ago

Spot on. Doing this will suddenly leave large segments of industries without workers, because no American wants to do those jobs. Clearly that’s too difficult a concept for Trump to understand.

[-] gibmiser@lemmy.world 3 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

Except that is a good thing for him - the more problems, the more he can rally his base around blaming others, regardless of if it makes sense

[-] nilloc@discuss.tchncs.de 2 points 8 months ago

They’ll raise prices on basic necessities as well, and help claw back all the wage increases we’ve managed to get in the last 3 years.

Can’t have the working class getting too comfortable or we might start trying to fix the other problems that billionaires cause.

[-] Boddhisatva@lemmy.world 6 points 8 months ago

Sure, go for it and watch the American agriculture industry suffer.

You know who else will suffer? All of us because we all like to, you know, eat what the agriculture industry produces for us. Farms will see huge shortages of workers because American workers will not work for the pittance those companies pay migrant workers. As has happened before in Georgia..

The Georgia law, HB 87, which does not take effect until July 1, already has had an effect as farmworkers are staying away for fear of racial profiling. Workers caught with phony documents could be fined up to $250,000 and get 15 years in prison - the same sentence for murder in Georgia. The law also gives police, among other powers, authority to check the immigration status of criminal suspects.

Growers now are scrambling to find enough workers to keep their crops from withering on the vine and rotting on the ground. Each spring and early summer, thousands of undocumented workers, mainly from Florida, travel to Georgia and states further north to work. Charles Hall, executive director of Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Association, said farmers are finding only between 30 and 50 percent of the 11,000 farm hands needed to the harvest their crops, producing a labor shortage that will hit the industry with a loss of $250 million.

The shortage clearly puts the lie to the myth held by critics of U.S. farming practices that desperate unemployed U.S. citizens will do farm work if it is available to them. The Georgia Labor Department released a survey showing that unemployment in Irwin County, where blackberries are a major crop, is at 13 percent, yet very few people went to the fields. Of those who did, the overwhelming majority walked away.

Imagine this on a National level. Produce will rot in the fields across the country creating shortages that will make prices skyrocket. This is beyond stupid. We are a nation of immigrants. We are all, barring those of pure Native American ancestry, descended from immigrants. People need to stop vilifying immigrants. We're cutting our own throats with this shit.

[-] MrSpArkle@lemmy.ca 1 points 8 months ago

Cracking down on the under the table stuff would kill so many birds.

Like how much migrant labor is used for making cattle feed?

Whoops, meat just became the new caviar. You’ll have a steak for Christmas or your birthday. Lower meat consumption leads to fewer emissions, lower cancer rates.

The cost of non-meat foods might actually go down while paying legal migrants and citizens a living wage.

[-] Rapidcreek@lemmy.world 28 points 8 months ago

Reminder. The Holocaust didn't start with the death camps. It started with a guy threatening to deport millions of people and nobody listened to him

[-] Nougat@kbin.social 9 points 8 months ago

It started with a guy promising to deport people, and the majority liked it.

[-] FlyingSquid@lemmy.world 24 points 8 months ago

I guarantee you that if this happens, they will do next to nothing to check someone's immigration status. They'll deport them. Citizens will get deported for speaking Spanish in the wrong place.

And no one in a position to do anything will give a shit.

[-] ptz@dubvee.org 9 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago)

I can do a passable Canadian accent, so maybe I can work that to my advantage if he somehow gets elected again.

Y hablo español si quiero clima caliente.

[-] NegativeLookBehind@kbin.social 9 points 8 months ago

I mean, if he takes office again, you might be better off somewhere else

[-] agent_flounder@lemmy.world 5 points 8 months ago

Depending on where that "somewhere else" is, exactly.

[-] TallonMetroid@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

We already saw how well that turned out for Florida. But people with basic pattern recognition tend not to be right wing, so... ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

[-] SuiXi3D@kbin.social 3 points 8 months ago

I doubt it’ll work out how he, or half of his supporters, think it will. Instead of legions of brown immigrants working the fields and being happy they make any money at all despite the grueling labor, it’ll be a much smaller number of white people all complaining (and rightfully so) about how hard the job is and how they should all be treated and paid better than they are.

The work’ll get done slower, there’ll be supply problems, prices will go up for everything across the board. Least of which because all the companies mistreating their workers will now be exposed for doing so, but they won’t care and start overcharging anyway. It’s almost like it’s been happening the last few years or something.

[-] captainlezbian@lemmy.world 9 points 8 months ago

No they’ll just decide there’s a crime problem and imprison enough people to do the labor

[-] SuiXi3D@kbin.social 2 points 8 months ago

Almost like that’s already been going on as well.

[-] rayyy@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

So why stop there? Why not deport them and first generation migrant kids? Except, of course, the rich connected ones like Melania?

[-] Badeendje@lemmy.world 2 points 8 months ago

I cannot imagine this happening. Not because I think he would not be vile enough to do it. But because too much of the American economy runs on these cheap laborers who are in too weak a position to stand up for their rights.

The entire agricultural sector would collapse, rich people's houses would not be cleaned or maintained, hell most of the food industry would grind to a halt.

Or maybe he will as this weakens the position of those not yet caught and kicked out even more allowing for more exploitation.

They want to solve immigration to the US? Make employing anyone without the proper papers a federal crime with a mandatory minimum sentence.

this post was submitted on 12 Feb 2024
101 points (98.1% liked)

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