California Fruit Will Die on the Vine After ICE Raids, Labor Warns

[babylonsister]

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-02/california-fruit-is-going-to-die-on-the-vine-after-ice-raids

California Fruit Will ‘Die on the Vine’ After ICE Raids, Labor Warns
By Kartikay Mehrotra
March 2, 2018, 5:00 AM EST


Maria’s husband spent the past 15 years pruning citrus trees on farms across California’s Central Valley. In that time, he’d become skilled enough to earn more than the state’s $11-an-hour minimum wage trimming branches for Sun Pacific, the company that brings the Cuties brand of mandarin oranges to grocers and tables across the U.S.

After dropping off his kids at school Monday in Porterville, the father of five, who’d been arrested in 2014 for driving under the influence, was pulled over and detained by federal agents. The arrest was one of hundreds in a flurry of raids this week across the state as part of the Trump administration’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants.

The conflict peaked politically this week after Oakland Mayor Libby Schaaf warned residents on Saturday of an imminent sting, giving those without papers time to evade the sweeps. U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement said it had arrested 232 individuals over a four-day operation through Wednesday who were in violation of federal immigration laws, of which 115 had prior felony convictions.

‘Gang Lookout’

Thomas Homan, the agency’s acting director, estimated earlier this week that more than 800 “criminal aliens” remained at large in the Bay Area and blamed the mayor in part for some of those misses, likening her warnings to “a gang lookout yelling ‘police.”’ The enforcement action is a direct response to California’s sanctuary policies, in which local agencies don’t cooperate with immigration enforcement.

“It’s outrageous that a mayor would circumvent federal authorities and certainly put them in danger by making a move such as that,” White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters in a briefing Thursday.

Schaaf blasted the agency and Trump administration’s immigration policy as racist.

Both Trump’s opponents and some Trump supporters in California can agree on one thing: raids are bad for business. Reports of sweeps and high-profile detentions are terrifying the state’s undocumented population -- estimated at 2.6 million in 2015 -- who are scared to leave their homes.

more...

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-02/california-fruit-is-going-to-die-on-the-vine-after-ice-raids

[Thomas Hurt]

1. GA and AL tried this racist anti-immigration scheme...

it cost them billions in lost crops. Someone even put out a report on the cost benefit of the law.

https://cber.cba.ua.edu/New%20AL%20Immigration%20Law%20-%20Costs%20and%20Benefits.pdf

[roamer65]

2. Let it rot. I can afford the food price inflation.

Most Dumpsters cannot. Fuck them.

[OldHippieChick]

3. That's not the only industry that might be affected.

The hospitality industry could be seriously impacted as well. I cannot remember the last hotel/motel housekeeper/maid I had for whom English was a native language. Not to mention food service, especially kitchen help and fast food. Then roofers, landscapers, gardeners, housekeepers, and day laborers of all kinds. In other words, our economy could be devastated.

[haele]

4. I'm sure all those laid off manufacturing employees

Are going to just come flocking to the fields and hotels and construction sites to retake those necessary and "good" American jobs that those undocumented workers were doing...

Right...



Haele