Trump’s immigration plans are already wrecking the food industry

The results of these actions will affect us far more than those immigrants.

Eating affordable food is woke, we can't allow it. Living in affordable housing is woke, we can't allow it. Choices are woke, we can't allow them. Life is woke, we can't allow it.

Well it won’t bother Trump supporters at all until they discover oranges suddenly cost $12 each. Then they’ll throw tantrums hoping Trump will notice and sign an executive order reducing orange prices to $0.05.

He could offer these immigrants some sort of work for citizenship plan or start treating them like fellow humans.

I mean, I agree megacorps making bank off the back of undocumented workers is horrible, but one way to solve that is to grant them citizenship, let them vote and form unions.

It's almost as if we're seeing the end result of decades of bad immigration policy.

Maybe if everyone knows a law sucks, and no one obeys the law because it sucks, and a huge chunk of our ability to not have famine is based on not obeying that law... maybe, just maybe that law should change to one that people can obey without anybody starving to death.

Absolutely.

Framing this whole thing as if we would be rallying behind the mega corps who run on (what should be completely illegal) exploitation is a bit weird.

The industry only relies on cheap labour because farmers aren't getting their fair share of the upstream profits.

That's probably the only good thing about Trump. Trump is so brazen with fucking around that the rest of America gets to experience the finding out part. Trump is fucking with illegal immigration and America is about to find out how much they depend on illegal immigrants (because I doubt it's only this one industry).

There’s bad guys all around but this is not “both sides the same”. Adding a new evil does nothing to resolve the situation. How about finding a way that respects human rights and doesn’t disrupt the economy? How about looking at actual facts on undocumented immigrants and act on the the most common or most egregious rather than the most brown skin? How about supporting those who are avoiding persecution in their home country?

Instead of ICE raids directed against sanctuary cities, very likely to be racist, with the intent of political revenge and instilling fear, how about:

• reform migrant worker laws to address the actual needs, prevent exploitation, and enforce against the employers who violate
• speed up processing and protection for those fleeing violence
• enforce student and other visa types who over-stay their status

This would be more comprehensive, respect human rights, avoid racism, and improve compliance with the laws. It focuses on results rather than partisanship or instilling fear

Both are bad, but this is only making everything worse.

I was in Georgia when they enacted the Live scan law. Let me tell you how it went down. Farmers, as in individual/family farms that weren't owned by large corps, didn't have the liquidity to pay more for labor. Those small/medium farms went on the news and begged for people to come and work, talking about how they had stuff rotting on the vine and how most folks wouldn't even finish out their first day. Mid size farmers aren't exactly poor, but most businesses don't survive just not having labor and not turning revenue, and by the end of that first growing season, a whole lot of small and mid-size farms ended up selling the farm to large corps or else just outright shutting down.

There is practically zero chance that the farm industry will start paying living wages overnight. They might could do it, given time, oversight, direction, and aid (there's A LOT of downward pressure on the prices farms sell at), but it's just not going to happen in one growing season. Realistically, this could be real, real, real bad. The central valley has a huge ag industry, and we grow a LOT of non-grain crops (except corn) for the rest of the country and the world. There's some crops, like Pistachios, where the central valley is one of two places in the whole world where there's meaningful agricultural operations for them. We also produce a lot of the good eating oranges (have you ever eaten a Florida Valencia Orange? They taste like eating pure sour armpit, there's a reason they make them into juice) and other citrus. So, not only are we going to see food shortages (and some pretty specific food supply shortages for the rest of the world), but probably a lot of the farms around here are going to end up being corporate owned, leaving everyone here poorer and worse off than they were before.

You are not wrong, but I don't really think abusing the disenfranchised to the extent that they aren't getting paid at all while food rots away is what I would call a "good path" to living wages.

First off, no one is getting living wages for the work yet, and we have no evidence to suggest they will.

Secondly, even if this does lead to that, maybe we could have found a path forward without all the unnecessary added suffering?

I dunno, it just feels really fucked up to be spinning this like the only outcome is "living wages" when all it has actually done so far is cause additional harm.

Nah, they'd rather the country starve and they go under than do that

And basic amenities like places to poop, pee, wash your bands and getting raped more gently. Thanks fellow immigrants!

Costco has a peach fire sale! Just $59.99! Per slice! It comes a glass bottle with 3 peach's in sugar! All American made materials and food. The glass is so strong, you can drop it. That'll be $543 and 73 cents please! Yes the glass does break when you drop it, we're just saying that it's strong and you can drop it, if you want.

Thank you for genuinely making me laugh amidst this horror show.

Illegal immigration is principally a clerical issue. A problem of documents. If you give them documents, then they're not illegal immigrants anymore. They're already doing the labor. They should be given legal recognition and protection.

There shouldn't be such a thing as illegal immigration. If people want to come and work, let them. This whole bullshit system and narrative was set up to create a permanent underclass of labor to exploit in the first place.

I mean, we can surely root for the workers, no?

lol... all our food is imported from the US and mexico (except a few seasonal fruits and potatoes in the summer)

That's the thing, his being a "businessman" has never really meant anything. When a person starts out with a large pile of money, they can make bad decisions their entire lives and still stay rich, as long as their accountants don't let them spend down the seed money. His mom front-loaded his idiot life and he's been claiming to be successful since.

No one will learn anything. They'll blame it on someone as always. "Democrats want higher minimum wage so it forced companies to hire immigrants".

There is always a way to blame it on someone else and idiots will always believe it if someone keeps repeating it.

The problem didn’t appear overnight and trying to “fix” it overnight is going to cause chaos.

Just one example: there was a bipartisan bill a few months ago that had most of the things republicans asked for. Trump pressured the republicans to not vote for the bill because he wanted to campaign on illegal immigration and do this kind of cruel and stupid shit when he got elected.

Trump doesn’t try to fix things, he just likes showy displays of power and cruelty because he’s a fucking asshole.

They've tried. They can't abuse American workers the way they do immigrant workers.

You should look up what Stephen Colbert did in 2010.

There was an organization that would take any American that wanted to be a farm worker, and connect them with local farms. Even paid decently, better than a lot of wage slave jobs. Not genuinely good, but like $15/hour back then.

As Colbert testified about it to Congress, "Please don't make me do this again. It is really, really hard." Americans really don't want to do it.

This isn't even the first time produce has rotten in the fields due to a Trump immigration threat. I distinctly remember reading about tomatoes rotting on the vine in the deep south, probably around 2017.

You can pay what you want the average American is not willing to do farm work because they got educated and want to use that education. Picking berries or whatever in the hot sun for 12h isn't it. Until you start paying so much you raise prices 10x or more and that doesn't work when you're in a globalized economy, no one is going to pay $80 for strawberries when they can get them for $8.

More so these workers need to be regulated and that requires some form of legality and documentation.

They aren’t willing to pay living wages

That should help grocery costs go down, right?!?

Pretty sure the idea is to use prison labor.