Farms are so desperate for workers they are - in general - paying decently well - often $20 /hr or more for people who know what they are doing. Is that enough? I’d argue no. Are there abuses? Yes, but that’s why we need to further extend protections to undocumented and H-2A visa workers and expand the H-2A visa program. Such protections have been pushed hard in California and it’s definitely had a positive effect. Republicans have fought to limit H-2A visas and even end the program precisely because they WANT slave labor.
But in general there is a misconception that illegal immigrants are suppressing wages and so therefore the answer is to get punish and deport illegal workers. Project 2025 explicitly calls for ending the H-2A visa program. If it were a case of citizens clamoring to go pick strawberries or work in Ag at all, then this notion might have some validity. But, sadly, this is not the case at all and you need only go talk to any decent sized farm.
The answer is to acknowledge that not everyone has the resources and time to enter this country legally and go through a complicated and opaque-ish visa process that we unnecessarily make harder - illegal immigration is going to keep happening so rather than focus on punishment of illegal immigrants let’s work on protecting them.
tl;dr: Food prices are going to go up if this mass deportation goes through. But it’s not because wages were suppressed but because there will be a huge labor shortage.
I specifically acknowledged that abuses happen. There is a long history of this and it’s certainly not limited to illegal immigrants or even immigrants in general. In this case the abusers were using the H2-A visa program. Notably, they were caught.
So they are just admitting agriculture still relies on slave labor?
You’re implying they actually thought about it.
No. You should read the article.
Farms are so desperate for workers they are - in general - paying decently well - often $20 /hr or more for people who know what they are doing. Is that enough? I’d argue no. Are there abuses? Yes, but that’s why we need to further extend protections to undocumented and H-2A visa workers and expand the H-2A visa program. Such protections have been pushed hard in California and it’s definitely had a positive effect. Republicans have fought to limit H-2A visas and even end the program precisely because they WANT slave labor.
But in general there is a misconception that illegal immigrants are suppressing wages and so therefore the answer is to get punish and deport illegal workers. Project 2025 explicitly calls for ending the H-2A visa program. If it were a case of citizens clamoring to go pick strawberries or work in Ag at all, then this notion might have some validity. But, sadly, this is not the case at all and you need only go talk to any decent sized farm.
The answer is to acknowledge that not everyone has the resources and time to enter this country legally and go through a complicated and opaque-ish visa process that we unnecessarily make harder - illegal immigration is going to keep happening so rather than focus on punishment of illegal immigrants let’s work on protecting them.
tl;dr: Food prices are going to go up if this mass deportation goes through. But it’s not because wages were suppressed but because there will be a huge labor shortage.
I guess this is only happening in Georgia then. https://apnews.com/article/business-georgia-slavery-forced-labor-migrant-workers-0e0d7235e79a4e216307e007a7aa716b
I specifically acknowledged that abuses happen. There is a long history of this and it’s certainly not limited to illegal immigrants or even immigrants in general. In this case the abusers were using the H2-A visa program. Notably, they were caught.