Elections These MAGA farmers could be ruined if Trump follows through with mass deportations

[freakroor]

A lot of farms also use documented, legal immigrants simply because they can’t afford to pay high wages and Americans won’t do the work for what they can pay.

why cant they afford to pay high wages? couldnt they just charge more for their produce.

 

[jefferz]

why cant they afford to pay high wages? couldnt they just charge more for their produce.

As a farmer, I grow small grains mainly, I can ask $50 a bushel for my wheat, but no one is going to pay it.
You take what the elevator pays you, or you keep it for when the market gets better.

I have the option of hanging onto my small grains for 3-4 years if I want before I sell them, people that farm things like fruits and vegetables can't do that. They have to sell their products fairly quick, or it spoils and they get nothing.

You might ask why the farmers don't all get together, and demand a certain price for their goods, but with the way farms operate these days it won't work. Most farms operate off of loans these days, and they can't afford to hang onto their goods. Loans have to be paid back.

 

[cincymma79]

As a farmer, I grow small grains mainly, I can ask $50 a bushel for my wheat, but no one is going to pay it.
You take what the elevator pays you, or you keep it for when the market gets better.

I have the option of hanging onto my small grains for 3-4 years if I want before I sell them, people that farm things like fruits and vegetables can't do that. They have to sell their products fairly quick, or it spoils and they get nothing.

You might ask why the farmers don't all get together, and demand a certain price for their goods, but with the way farms operate these days it won't work. Most farms operate off of loans these days, and they can't afford to hang onto their goods. Loans have to be paid back.

Why don’t you think Latinos are a valuable as Americans? That’s the only argument against paying a fair wage

 

[Islam Imamate]

Why don’t you think Latinos are a valuable as Americans? That’s the only argument against paying a fair wage

Have you not heard of supply and demand? More Hispanic immigrants willing to work on farms means lower wages which means cheaper produce for everyone.

Thought that was obvious but guess not.

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

In 2020–22, 32 percent of crop farmworkers were U.S. born, 7 percent were immigrants who had obtained U.S. citizenship, 19 percent were other authorized immigrants and the remaining 42 percent held no work authorization.

Brown people make up around 70 percent of the workforce. Majority of white folks are in supervisory, managerial and inspector positions. Only 30 percent of whites are actually laborers. Honestly if we shut down the skilled visas, pathway to citizenship and mass deport illegals then we will have a huge shortage in labor. We have to compromise somewhere.

No one is saying farmers have to be white, just that they have to be here legally like everyone else.

You don't get to break the law just because you think you can come up with a good argument why.

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

Why don’t you think Latinos are a valuable as Americans? That’s the only argument against paying a fair wage

You asking him to pay his slaves bro?

 

[Yehudim]

I love how idiotic liberals encourage illegal immigration because the food might rot if we don’t allow Mexicans to pick it.

Why don’t we let the food rot and let the farmers pay for the consequences and perhaps force them to think about and push for immigration reform? Is our immigration system “not broken?”

Shit would be far more productive in America if people stopped trying to have their cake and eat it too.

 

[PainIsLIfe]

By CAMILLE VON KAENEL
12/26/2024 05:00 AM EST

SACRAMENTO, California — California farmers could soon enjoy bumper crops thanks to President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to lift water restrictions. But who will pick them if he follows through on his deportation threats?

The country’s largest agricultural constituency backed Trump in November, bucking California’s deep-blue electorate over his campaign promises to “open the faucet” and deliver more water to the state’s parched, conservative-leaning Central Valley. But now it’s reckoning with an uncomfortable contradiction: Trump also campaigned on mass deportations of undocumented immigrants, who make up at least half of the state’s agricultural workforce.

That’s left California’s agricultural barons, who employ the most farm workers of any state in the nation and grow half the produce consumed in the United States, nervously parsing Trump’s rhetoric.

“To say it would have an impact on California would be an understatement,” said Chris Reardon, vice president of policy advocacy at the industry group California Farm Bureau Federation. Reardon, who declined to say who he voted for, has been fielding calls from members asking him what exactly will happen to workers.
“We just don’t know yet,” he’s told them.

Trump has appointed anti-immigration hawks to top positions, like Thomas Homan as border czar, and pledged to begin deportations on “Day One” of his administration, through executive orders crafted to evade legal challenges and by undoing Biden-era restrictions on deportations. Dave Puglia, the president and CEO of the Western Growers Association, called the prospect of sweeps on farms “very troubling.”

Deporting hundreds of thousands of undocumented farmworkers from California would be logistically difficult and time-consuming, to say nothing of the legal challenges California’s Attorney General Rob Bonta and other Democratic officials are already preparing. Homan has said the administration would prioritize deporting undocumented people who’ve committed serious crimes.

“If that is indeed the focus of the administration’s effort, then I think most people would support that,” said Puglia, who also declined to say who he voted for. “So there’s a little bit of a wait and see thing here.”

During his first term, Trump also said he wouldn’t go after workers in the food sector. But his administration still conducted raids at Mississippi poultry plants and Nebraska produce processing facilities, arresting hundreds of workers. The extent of Trump 2.0’s deportations efforts will determine how much California’s farmers could potentially sacrifice their water access to sway his immigration policies.

So far, they’re primarily focused on building relationships with Trump’s cabinet, including Brooke Rollins, his pick for Agriculture Secretary who’s seen as a trusted adviser on other issues too.

Puglia said he’ll continue to advocate for stalled bipartisan legislation born out of a 2019 deal between the ag industry and the United Farm Workers. The bill would set up a new temporary worker visa program specifically for agriculture and create a pathway to citizenship for longtime undocumented farmworkers.

One of the bill’s moderate Republican champions, John Duarte, just lost his reelection bid to represent the Central Valley in the House. A fourth generation farmer himself, he has said he is now eyeing a Trump administration job in water or natural resources.

Puglia also sees an opportunity in the Trump administration, which is likely to undo a Biden-era rule that increased labor protections for temporary farmworkers under the H2-A visa. A federal judge in Georgia has stayed the rule following challenges from ag and business groups and Republican attorney generals. Puglia said he’d like to see the H2-A program simplified and expanded for farmworkers instead.

Antonio De Loera, communications director at the United Farm Workers, said that doesn’t necessarily address the threat of deportations.

“Anything that happens needs to first do right by the workforce that is here, the current workforce that has been feeding us for decades,” said De Loera. “We will not allow that workforce to be discarded and replaced by expansion of an exploitative gap worker program.”

His main focus, he said, will not be on legislation but on organizing and educating workers. Even if Trump doesn’t go through with mass deportations — or if California refuses to carry them through or wins its anticipated legal challenges — the threat still has an impact on workers, who may be less likely to report rights violations, and families who may be torn apart.

“The main thing we’re doing across the organization is trying to just reassure workers and empower workers, so that they’re not scared by this rhetoric into accepting working conditions that are dangerous,” he said.

https://www.politico.com/news/2024/12/26/california-farmers-trump-water-workers-00195839

Oh no, who will pick the cotton?

 

[NoSmilez]

No one is saying farmers have to be white, just that they have to be here legally like everyone else.

You don't get to break the law just because you think you can come up with a good argument why.

I am using white because it's easier to get through to some folks on Sherdog. It is interchangeable with Americans for the most part. Blacks do work on farms but they are roughly 3 percent or so.
Like I said, you have to compromise somewhere. If you mass deport illegals then you need to open up skilled/seasonal visas and keep pathways to citizenship open. You also need to change the seasonal visa laws to make it yearly. Some industries like eggs and dairy run all year round. Seasonal visas don't do anything for those industries.

Agriculture isn't the only industry affected by mass deportations and closing down visa pathways. Construction, hotels and restaurant work also depend on foreign born labor.

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

I am using white because it's easier to get through to some folks on Sherdog.

Yeah racists. Like you.

 

[NoSmilez]

Yeah racists. Like you.

This is the best you can come up with?

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

This is the best you can come up with?

The idea that the only possible way the economy can function is importing a race of slaves just isn't true.

And yes, the economy will have to change to adapt to that.

The argument that your country is a house of cards and the only way forward is to keep adding cards until it collapses is idiotic.

You have to knock the house of cards over and build something new.

 

[Islam Imamate]

I love how idiotic liberals encourage illegal immigration because the food might rot if we don’t allow Mexicans to pick it.

Why don’t we let the food rot and let the farmers pay for the consequences and perhaps force them to think about and push for immigration reform? Is our immigration system “not broken?”

Shit would be far more productive in America if people stopped trying to have their cake and eat it too.

Well from a pro-immigration POV its better to reform the system to legalize immigrants working on farms before letting the crops rot. Not to mention passing that kind of reform is difficult with GOP opposition which on this point does represent a significant part of the electorate.

If Trump's GOP wants to bite the bullet and push through their mass deportation and anti-immigration reform such that Americans feel the pain afterwards that could work to the advantage of the pro-immigration argument but that's not preferable given the interim period of counter-productive populist immigration policy.

In practice I expect Trump to moderate somewhat so that we'll see arbitrary restrictions on immigration to appease the base, who is easily pleased by Trump anyway, but not enough that we get to the point of mass deportation and crops rotting.

 

[NoSmilez]

The idea that the only possible way the economy can function is importing a race of slaves just isn't true.

And yes, the economy will have to change to adapt to that.

The argument that your country is a house of cards and the only way forward is to keep adding cards until it collapses is idiotic.

You have to knock the house of cards over and build something new.

America is built on immigrants. It is the history of America. Blindly shutting down all immigration is idiotic. You have to compromise somewhere. We need to increase H1B and H2A visas. I can accept a mass deportation for illegals but then you need to open pathways for workers to come here. It isn't just for unskilled labor. Tech and STEM fields also have a huge foreign born presence.
You are living in a fantasy world if you think we can restart from scratch and become some isolationist nation.

 

[ColemanwastheGOAT]

America is built on immigrants. It is the history of America. Blinding shutting down all immigration is idiotic. You have to compromise somewhere. We need to increase H1B and H2A visas. I can accept a mass deportation for illegals but then you need to open pathways for workers to come here. It isn't just for unskilled labor. Tech and STEM fields also have a huge foreign born presence.
You are living in a fantasy world if you think we can restart from scratch and become some isolationist nation.

Again. Immigrants and illegal immigrants are not the same thing.

 

[NoSmilez]

Again. Immigrants and illegal immigrants are not the same thing.

Again. You are ignoring my point of compromising.

 

[Rational Poster]

That means 58% aren't.

That means a fair portion of the rest are documented and authorized H-2A visa holders.

The reality remains, if we remove 42% of farm workers, we won't have a functioning agriculture industry. It's not a matter of compensation, there literally aren't enough workers in America to do all the work. We've been operating at full employment for like 10 years.

 

[cincymma79]

Have you not heard of supply and demand? More Hispanic immigrants willing to work on farms means lower wages which means cheaper produce for everyone.

Thought that was obvious but guess not.

So to be clear you’re now arguing for stricter immigration so these wages won’t be artificially lowered or for keeping Latinos as borderline slaves

 

[cincymma79]

You asking him to pay his slaves bro?

Woah woah woah. His positions are totally logical and not just some bloated kid screaming into the internet

 

[Islam Imamate]

So to be clear you’re now arguing for stricter immigration so these wages won’t be artificially lowered or for keeping Latinos as borderline slaves

I'm for more, legalized immigration so that they can have better working conditions and we can still have cheaper produce.