Trump Crackdown Unnerves Immigrants, and the Farmers Who Rely on Them

[Eugene]

Source: New York Times

Trump Crackdown Unnerves Immigrants, and the Farmers Who Rely on Them

It has long been an open secret that some farms survive by relying on an undocumented labor force. Now, tough immigration enforcement has caused a crisis.

By Christina Goldbaum
March 18, 2019

HOMER, N.Y. — The fears weigh on Mike McMahon: If one of his undocumented workers gets a traffic ticket, it could prompt an immigration audit of his entire farm. If another gets detained by immigration agents at a roadside checkpoint or in a supermarket parking lot, the rest may flee. And if his undocumented work force disappears overnight, there is no one to replace them.

“It keeps me up at night,” said Mr. McMahon, who owns a dairy farm south of Syracuse. “There are people out there who just say, ‘Send them all back and build a wall.’ But they would be facing empty shelves in the grocery store if that were to happen.”

It has long been an open secret in upstate New York that the dairy industry has been able to survive only by relying on undocumented immigrants for its work force. Now, this region has become a national focal point in the debate over President Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants and their role in agriculture.

The tensions have escalated to such a degree over the last year that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo described federal agents as reckless, accusing Immigration and Customs Enforcement of violating the rights of farmers in pursuing undocumented immigrants.

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Read more: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/18/nyregion/ny-farmers-undocumented-workers-trump-immigration.html

[ProudMNDemocrat]

1. Nor will Farmers hire Anericans....

because they want too much money, like better than minimum wage.

[SoCalNative]

2. I think most Americans

would't do the work even if they did hire them.

Maybe another alternative would be prison labor?

[Farmer-Rick]

3. Or slave labor, or indentured servitude, or how about tenant farming?

All those things would be good substitutes for lazy Americans who don't want to work hard, or horrors of horrors, who want decent wages. And then you can still get your pesticide covered, round up drenched produce for cheap, cheap cheap.

I managed to make a decent living from and an organic, pasture raised lamb farm without ever using illegal immigrant labor and paying above minimum wage. But the lazy chemical farmer and the corporate farms want you to believe it can only be done with cheap, cheap labor.