Donald Trump's Deportation Plan Causes 'Panic' Among Farmers
Donald Trump's Deportation Plan Causes 'Panic' Among Farmers
The news comes amid a warning that agricultural output will fall between $30 and $60 billion if Trump's flagship policy is carried out.
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Yeah, if Trump deports all those people, who will we exploit for cheap labor?
Yeah, I'm absolutely opposed to this deportation thing, it's cruel and if anything I feel that we should be encouraging more immigrants to come here, but the "it'll be bad because it'll get rid of all the people who do these jobs american citizens don't want to do" line does sorta gloss over the fact that if the job conditions are so bad that if people have literally any other option the role goes unfilled, something probably needs to be done to improve the conditions of that job, especially if it is as vital as food production.
You're not wrong but what's a realistic path to accomplishing such a thing? Capitalists want to extract as much money as possible so raising wages or improving working conditions without being forced is out of the question. The only party with even a pretend interest in forcing that discussion just got beat down all over the country. And no one cares enough about the issue to fix it by paying more for food, which would probably still be true if we doubled wages for all jobs.
Realistically it is difficult, I agree, as capitalism doesnt look to be going anywhere and the current environment doesnt seem like one where increased regulation is likely to get passed. Honestly I think the most realistic path to some improvement at the moment is research into automation tech for the kinds of farm roles that currently rely on cheap labor. Not that capitalists wont just take the cost savings and still pay people less, but its at least possible to pay people more without increasing the cost of staples if the available revenue can be spread across fewer more productive workers, and because operating complex machinery and maintaining it take more time to learn, such workers at least might have a better shot at organizing and thereby forcing that wage increase, because their skills could be harder to replace. And because the technology theoretically allows for increased profits, funding developing it might stand a chance at still getting through even current political conditions.
Honestly, that might be required even in a more equitable economic system anyway though, at some level that kind of work seems like it would have pretty slim margins, so even if the profits were distributed fairly, it still might not be enough to make those jobs not terrible.
Automation of some of the jobs might be possible, but likely still wildly more expensive than paying some immigrant peanuts
To deport someone, the receiving country has to agree to accept them. Mexico will accept their own nationals, and possibly those of some other countries, but they won't accept everyone. What do you do with people who's country refuses to accept them back (this has happened)? And what do you do with them when you can't determine where to send them back to? You've already promised they won't be let loose, so you'll put them into containment facilities - all very hastily-built, because there are so many people you've accumulated so quickly.
But you have more people than you know what to do with, and they're all just idling in the camps, and the nation is desperate for workers. The temptation is too great: instead of spending all this money maintaining the camps, you can offset the expenses by renting them to various industries as cheap labor.
It's still expensive, your people still resent spending money on them, and you still want to deport them, so you don't spend much on food or medicine or clothes or sanitation. Winter comes, disease rips through the camps, and masses die - but that's not your responsibility, these things happen ...
Just a reminder that most of the concentration camps Germany built weren't extermination camps, they were slave labor camps but the administration didn't care if the prisoners died of disease or injury, they'd just round up more people to feed the German machine.
They'll strike a deal with some other country to take them. Then issue contracts for private chartered flights at $10k/person, given to their best buddies.
Well I'm hoping white people but we know how well that worked in Georgia and Arizona, we found out they're just too soft to work those jobs despite being told they would be taking their jerb back
The migrant workers are often subjected to working conditions that would violate federal worker protection laws, but because they are in the country illegally, they don't report the poor working conditions out of fear. That's exploitation, through and through. No worker should be expected to tolerate such poor treatment, regardless of skin color.
These companies depend on immigrant labor... Will they stand idly by while government takes away their exploitable pool of undocumented immigrants?
Likely not, but Trumpism is very quid pro quo based, so those companies that have the means to gain favor with Trump might be able to keep their laborers or gain exclusive rights to immigrant laborers. The smaller companies will be sacrificed in this regard.
History has many examples of how shipping urban intellectuals off to work on farms rids you of said intellectuals and leads to (checks notes) mass starvation. Since that’s the worst possible outcome, I imagine he’s going to go with that.