…is ultimately get those on “government assistance” to do those low paying jobs “nobody wants.”
Right?
Everyone’s entitled to their opinion. I think there are lots of “reasons” given to deport immigrants. It depends on who your audience is and what they want to hear.
No, it’s xenophobia.
Few of those on aid will go out and pick strawberries.
If your only goal is getting people off government assistance, wouldn’t it be easier to just discontinue government assistance?
A huge proportion of those currently receiving government assistance are the elderly, the disabled, and children, none of whom are obvious candidates to pick strawberries, work in meat-packing plants, and so forth.
For example, the single largest assistance program is food stamps; as of 2015, around two-thirds of participants were kids, elderly, or disabled (44% under age 18, 11% aged 60 or higher, and 10% disabled adults 18-59) – cite (pdf). A chunk of the remainder were working already, just working in jobs that didn’t pay enough, and still others were only temporarily in a bad spot (recently laid off, have medical conditions that limit current work but aren’t permanently disabling, etc.). Which of these groups is the OP planning to send out to pick crops?
Let them die, right guys? Buncha freeloaders, the lot of them.
Now excuse me while I yell at my Congresscritter about my farm subsidy.
In reality, the country would be better off if we “deported” everybody whose family has been here more than 4 generations.
A bunch of immigrants can come in and screw the natives thoroughly. Ask any Navajo.
As I understand the situation, the government is attempting to rid this nation of illegal aliens, and prevent more illegal aliens from entering.
“Government assistance” seems to be only one of the reasons why illegal aliens come to the U.S.A…
Fruit could be picked by machine. Machines can be very expensive but they don’t refuse to report to work in order to prove how necessary they are to the company.
Unless strawberry-picking wages increase. Which you’d certainly expect, if many of the people who had been doing it for minimum wage (or less) were suddenly deported. That’s the way most businesses work: if there aren’t enough applicants for available positions, then you sweeten the pot until there are enough applicants.
If ICE enforcement is vigorous and uniform, then you are competing with your fellow strawberry farmers on a level playing field, so no single strawberry farmer is getting a raw deal. The price of strawberries paid by consumers would have to go up in order to generate the increased revenue to pay competitive salaries (exactly how much seems to be the subject of widely varying estimates), but the budget for public assistance would be expected to decrease too.
It’s impossible to compare absolute numbers (i.e. the # of illegal immigrants who could be subject to deportation, about 12 million) with the percentages you claim. How many physically capable adults are unemployed and on public assistance? If that number is less than 12 million, then there would be a real labor shortage - and in that case, rather than looking the other way while immigrants jump the fence or overstay their tourist visa, the right answer is to increase the number of work visas, allowing people to enter/live in the US as legal immigrants.
I think it is entirely possible that the administration, like many of its supporters, actually believe illegal aliens are in and of themselves a bad and dangerous thing, rather than there being a “real reason” lurking below their rhetoric.
Next most likely, IMHO, is that, like so many authoritarian governing powers, they find it useful and necessary to have a scapegoat, a culprit to point to and blame for the ills of the society. Some group to hate. It always has to be an outgroup, a population with little social power.
I’m sort of agnostic in general about whether authoritarian despots believe that kind of rhetoric or whether they are twisting their machiavellian moustaches and engaging in this as a deliberate tactic. Doesn’t matter much. It functions that way whether they believe their bullshit or not. It lures a frighteningly large percent of the population into participating in the witch-hunt and blaming the designated witches not only for the original social problems but for the new ones caused by the damn witch-hunt itself. And, where not quite that, it at least distracts them from noticing the social problems created by the witch-hunt itself. Meanwhile, to conduct a witch-hunt you need an authoritarian force with lots of unimpeded power and discretion. That only occurs at the expense of the rights of the general populace.
Cite?
Cite?
So who do we expect to see working in our meat packing plants?
Employees.
Why would you expect that, though?
You need enough people who are willing to do the work, able to do the work, and able to GET TO the work. Are we expecting people who have spent their lives in inner cities to suddenly pick up and move to the wide-open spaces, where they don’t have support systems (family, friends, churches, etc.)? There aren’t many strawberry-picking jobs in downtown Chicago, or in Dallas or Philadelphia or the Mississippi Delta.
For that matter, meat-packing jobs tend to be in places like Garden City, Kansas, and Fort Morgan, Colorado, again far from the major urban centers. Are we expecting that entire families will quit other jobs in other places to move to Garden City, just so one person in the family will be able to getting a job trimming beef? What are the other family members going to do for work in places where THE major industry is cutting up dead cows? (Or do we expect to split the family, creating two households instead of one, with two sets of household bills?)
Did you miss the part where I said wages would have to go up?
Yes. People move for work all the time. If an immigrant who has spent their life in another country can suddenly pick up and move to a wide open space, where they don’t have family/friends/churches, than a city slicker can do it too. You find a new church, make new friends among your coworkers, and build a new life in a new place.
for historical reference -
for histoical reference -
I couldn’t help but notice that you didn’t require a “cite” from the OP.
Illegal aliens are those aliens who illegally enter countries other than their own, and/or illegally remain in countries other than their own.
Finding a job and sending money back to their own country is one more reason for illegal aliens to enter a country other than their own.
Photos of fruit picking machines
I imagine that some fruit picking, like for strawberries, blackberries and the like, is hard to automate.
And an alternative to increasing wages of fruit pickers or mechanizing the process is moving production to Mexico. (I already find Mexican blackberries in the supermarket under the Driscoll’s brand.)
Wages going up won’t help if your expenses go up.
For example, I know a fellow locally who is working low-wage jobs. Here, though, he has family he can stay with rent-free and friends who will give him rides and loan him small sums of money. If he moves somewhere else, he suddenly has rent and car expenses to deal with–it’s going to take quite a large increase in wages just to break even.
That’s actually quite common in lower-income situations–there’s a lot of barter and ride-sharing and couch-surfing and trading services (I’ll watch your kids if you’ll change the oil in the car; I’ll mow your yard if you’ll give me a ride to work). A wage increase that cuts off access to these supports is a net loser.
Immigration patterns don’t work like that, though. Typically, you see entire families, or groups of people from one village, coming north, not singletons. It worked the same way when Europeans came over to Ellis Island a century ago, and the same way when the Okies and Arkies headed west during the Depression. They went with people they knew, or to join people they knew (which is why, e.g., there are Swedish communities in Minnesota and Kansas, and lots of Czechs in Kansas City, and lots of Russians in Brighton Beach).
If you are expecting individuals to move somewhere where they don’t have family/friends/churches to start a life anew, you are expecting something that is historically anomalous.
Do you mean immigrants or illegal immigrants?
If a company realized that they could create a profit of a million bucks per year for inventing, and selling, an automated blackberry picker, how many companies would produce prototypes?