California Crops Rot as Immigration Crackdown Creates Farmworker Shortage

[Aristotle]

California Crops Rot as Immigration Crackdown Creates Farmworker Shortage

Vegetable prices may be going up soon, as a shortage of migrant workers is resulting in lost crops in California.

Farmers say they’re having trouble hiring enough people to work during harvest season, causing some crops to rot before they can be picked. Already, the situation has triggered losses of more than $13 million in two California counties alone, according to NBC News.

[Gromgor]

DEY TUK UR JERBS! ......that clearly nobody is trying to fill.

[Sier]

A truly unfortunate situation.

I'm glad actual citizens will gain the opportunity to get back into the agricultural business - in time.

Regrettably, this type of thing is going to happen when illegal behavior is tolerated for so long that a huge void is left when it is actually enforced.

[Gromgor]

The problem with immigration isn't the lack of enforcement of the laws - it's that it is illegal in the first place.

This is a scenario in which a group of people are willing to do a service in exchange for an agreed upon pay amount, and simply by location of their birth they are being denied the opportunity to perform that service.

The process for legal entry into the country is ridiculous. It breeds an us Vs. them mentality, when it should be Us AND Them. "illegal" immigration is about the selective allowance of access to resources. It's not to keep some criminal element out. It a form of abominable views of humanity on par with racism, misogyny, religious persecution, etc.

It is the breakdown of the free market.

[Sier]

Well, Free Immigration is different from Free Market.

While we boast we have a free market and certainly some elements of our trade system are free, we do not indeed have one. We restrict trade via tariffs and taxes to pull corporations in a more nationalized direction. It's not nearly as restrictive as "Communist Lite" countries such as China and Russia, but it does strike a healthy balance IMO.

Free Immigration on the other hand would be an extraordinarily terrible thing. Americans have worked notably hard for our freedoms, wealth, security, and insurances which even the most impoverished among us take for granted. To allow unrestricted immigration would decrease all of these advantages which make our country one of the most powerful, luxurious countries in the world. Unrestricted immigration has nothing to do with the Free Market, and everything to do about charity. When you enforce charity, it soon becomes welfare...which, again, has nothing to do with a Free Market and more to do with a society who holds everything in common "Communism."

I've known people who wanted the jobs you are describing as "Noone wants them." I've had a job taken by an illegal immigrant which I would have preferred to have kept at the time. Making the statement "Only illegals merit unskilled labor positions" is 100% false, but one of the most professed arguments I see liberals make. Wrong, wrong, wrong. A *large majority* of Americans were 16-20 once and needed to partake in unskilled labor at one time or another, and those who are incapable of finishing college should certainly not be informed that they are unworthy of employment. In our country we have people who can't work, won't work, or can't find work. How about we help our neighbors who can't find work before we help criminals?

My wife migrated here the correct way with her family. They went through the process, waited, waited a little more, and then got the American dream. For someone to hop the fence and cut in front of a family such as hers is a slap in the face to everyone who wants that dream... and while I'm sympathetic to the plight of the more impoverished Mexicans, passing out free jobs is a temporary non-solution to their country's current problems.

Something to consider: The average household income for the Mexican family is around $10K per year. In Madacascar, it's $1,013. If we are to provide charity based upon who needs it most, the charity should be just that, and not due to "Proximity."

[Sier]

The process for legal entry into the country is ridiculous.

I do partially agree with this.

[Xywalan]

A truly unfortunate situation.

I'm glad actual citizens will gain the opportunity to get back into the agricultural business - in time.

Regrettably, this type of thing is going to happen when illegal behavior is tolerated for so long that a huge void is left when it is actually enforced.

Wait, are you saying that:

The farmers should pay their workers more and thus hire Americans who are unwilling to work for the current wages (and thus, accept the merits of raising the minimum wage)

[Sier]

Wait, are you saying that:

The farmers should pay their workers more and thus hire Americans who are unwilling to work for the current wages (and thus, accept the merits of raising the minimum wage)

That question is a play on words, and a trap.

I'm stating that many Americans will do the work for the minimum wage if they need work.

If the paid work exceeds that of the profit, the prices for the goods should raise accordingly.

I would rather see prices high than a higher unemployment rate, as we are at that point paying the extra expense of additional welfare.

[Gromgor]

What's amusing is that the minimum wage that keeps getting mentioned was itself inherently racist, and was designed to do to the Chinese during the building of the railroads what currently is happening to blacks and hispanics.

[Rosuav]

I don't think the world, at the moment, would benefit from a country adopting free immigration. However, I think a reduction in the onerous immigration rules would be a significant advantage. The biggest barrier to *freer* immigration is the extent of benefits at an imbalance against taxation, which would mean that an influx of people would render the country bankrupt. (Leaving aside the question of whether the US government isn't already insolvent.) So before you can start advocating letting more people in legally, you first have to figure out a way to make them not be an automatic drain, without causing massive unfairness in some other way (like saying "no welfare benefits until you've lived in the country for five years" or something).