Anonymous wrote:https://www.agalert.com/california-ag-news/archives/january-15-2025/kern-county-immigration-sweep-halts-citrus-harvest/

“The crew didn’t show up,” said Peter Belluomini, who grows and packs lemons, mandarins and navel oranges east of Bakersfield, and is in the middle of harvesting all three crops. “Instead of 30 people, there were like five,” said Belluomini, referring to workers hired through a farm labor contractor for his citrus harvest. “The rest were hiding at home.”

The info in this is coming from California Farm Bureau. For those not from an ag background the Farm Bureau has always been the more conservative of farmer organizations--strong ties to the John Birch Society in the 50s. But the Farm Bureau in Kern County, CA says:

The Kern County Farm Bureau stands with and supports our local farmworker community,” Holtermann said. She added that she agreed “criminals do not belong in our community.” But, she said, “those two groups—farmworkers and criminals—are not synonymous. Period.

Anonymous wrote:https://www.agalert.com/california-ag-news/archives/january-15-2025/kern-county-immigration-sweep-halts-citrus-harvest/

“The crew didn’t show up,” said Peter Belluomini, who grows and packs lemons, mandarins and navel oranges east of Bakersfield, and is in the middle of harvesting all three crops. “Instead of 30 people, there were like five,” said Belluomini, referring to workers hired through a farm labor contractor for his citrus harvest. “The rest were hiding at home.”

The info in this is coming from California Farm Bureau. For those not from an ag background the Farm Bureau has always been the more conservative of farmer organizations--strong ties to the John Birch Society in the 50s. But the Farm Bureau in Kern County, CA says:

The Kern County Farm Bureau stands with and supports our local farmworker community,” Holtermann said. She added that she agreed “criminals do not belong in our community.” But, she said, “those two groups—farmworkers and criminals—are not synonymous. Period.

Anonymous wrote:It will be unnecessarily expensive, now that Trump is using military airplanes to deport immigrants. Each military flight costs $800,000. A commercial flight would cost $100,000. MAGAs, why? I thought Trump said he was going to save money?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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 OPs post: 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.

Giving them a path to citizenship would solve this, easily.

There, I did your homework for you.

Anonymous wrote:Yup.

If sanctuary cities allowed ICE to capture illegal immigrant criminals at the jail, it would be a lot less expensive!

“The crew didn’t show up,” said Peter Belluomini, who grows and packs lemons, mandarins and navel oranges east of Bakersfield, and is in the middle of harvesting all three crops. “Instead of 30 people, there were like five,” said Belluomini, referring to workers hired through a farm labor contractor for his citrus harvest. “The rest were hiding at home.”