Trump’s immigration crackdown has made many immigrant farm workers scared to go to work

Lisa Tate is a sixth-generation farmer in Ventura county, California, an area that produces billions of dollars worth of fruit and vegetables each year, much of it hand-picked by immigrants in the US illegally.

Tate knows the farms around her well. And she says she can see with her own eyes how raids carried out by agents from US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (Ice) in the area’s fields earlier this month, part of Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, have frightened off workers.

“In the fields, I would say 70% of the workers are gone,” she said in an interview. “If 70% of your workforce doesn’t show up, 70% of your crop doesn’t get picked and can go bad in one day. Most Americans don’t want to do this work. Most farmers here are barely breaking even. I fear this has created a tipping point where many will go bust.“

  • onslaught545@lemmy.zip
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    3 days ago

    Then pay living wages. It’s hard to feel sorry for you when you’re crying about losing your slave labor.

    • enkers@sh.itjust.works
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      3 days ago

      This is a problem that’s been brewing for a long time. Their business model is untenable at the scale they’re at without relying on near slave labour. Their massive profits come more from scale, than absolute margin, so if they actually payed a living wage they’d be in the red.

      So now y’all will have to wait until the coming food shortages drive up prices before the pay is enough to interest other Americans that’d otherwise have no interest in those sorts of jobs.

      The owners won’t play ball without getting their pound of flesh.

      • blargle@sh.itjust.works
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        3 days ago

        We could subsidize the farms that grow actual food crops picked by humans at a high enough rate that the food is affordable and the workers are paid reasonably well. And do that instead of subsidizing farms that grow feed corn, ethanol corn, and grain/soy for export.

    • Ech@lemmy.ca
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      3 days ago

      Every time a ceo whines about how they “can’t” do something, everyone should add “…without stopping the siphoning of ever more money to our shareholders and ourselves.”