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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I’ll tell you what’s good about illegal immigration

They make good food

They clean houses, office buildings, hotel rooms, restaurants, schools

They have cleaned my house in particular for over 10 years

They pick produce

They do my landscaping

They helped clean out my house after a hurricane

They put my roof on

They groom my pets

They make excellent food and serve and deliver it

They do laundry

They do your nails and wax you

They drive Ubers and taxis

And a thousand other things

Harassing underdocumented immigrants and making them afraid to go to work is why food prices and the prices of everything are going up everywhere.

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Yikes, this is so ugly. I think you’re trying to be helpful but to me this looks like you just want servants.
[/quote]

Calling this ‘wanting servants’ misses the point entirely. Immigrants aren’t props in anyone’s household; they’re the backbone of entire industries. Agriculture, construction, logistics, food service, elder care, hospitality, transportation… the list is long because our economy genuinely depends on their labor. Acknowledging that reality isn’t ugly, demeaning or "wanting servants"; pretending it doesn’t exist is what's ugly and demeaning.[/quote]

People like this are why democrats lose

Exploitation of labor

The conservative in me thinks addressing this issue (deporting them) would lead to higher wages and better benefits in the ag sector, which attracts more domestic workers to work in ag. It also would increase investment in mechanization and automation. There will be a time of higher costs increased food prices but when things settle, they should stabilize.

However, on a broader level, I find this entire situation absurd. The United States has become far too reliant on migrant labor, having half of the agricultural workforce undocumented. We need to ask ourselves why this is the case. It ain’t because this is "work Americans won't do". It's entirely because, for over 40 years, corporations have been allowed to exploit cheap imported labor, keeping wages for these jobs disgustingly low sometimes even below the federal minimum wage.

There are plenty of Americans who would be willing to do this work, but not for $12 an hour under the sweltering sun of Texas. Offer $30 an hour plus benefits to harvest lettuce, and you would see plenty of people lining up for those jobs. The problem lies in the fact that neither Democrats nor Republicans have taken meaningful action for decades. BOTH sides have allowed "big ag" to exploit these workers, paying pennies per box harvested perpetuating this cycle of exploitation, and doing so in such a way that if it were to ever dare end, suddenly panic, omg, our foods gonna rot and we're all gonna die of starvation because we cant afford food! They have caught you in this line of thinking, so they will always get their cheap, exploitive labor.

In my opinion, the widespread abuse of migrant labor over the past four decades is a shameful stain on this country. But, just like iPhones and Nike shoes, most people turn a blind eye to the unethical labor practices behind the products they want, so long as the price is low. Just look at these posts: concerns about "rotting crops" and "skyrocketing prices", and not a single care about the exploitation of these workers. This has been ignored for decades and now that there's a policy threatens to send them home, we just get all up in arms because we might have to pay more.

It’s almost like saying that an economy can’t survive without illegal & low or no cost labor to farm the land.

You know who else used that argument?

The Confederacy during the Civil War.

Let that sink in.

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I totally agree with you.  The deeper issue isn't being "run over by illegals" nor is it "valuing human life" (but not really valuing it when we don't pay people enough to survive.  Yes, we need to start demanding that farms start paying people $30 an hour with full health benefits, subsidized through the federal government.  Yes, food prices would rise dramatically.  Dramatically.  I don't believe they'd stabilize THAT much.  But I'd be we'd all stop throwing away uneaten food.  I don't know how most people would afford food, but that would be something that could be dealt with.  [/quote]

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