Thread: If illegal immigrants go, produce prices would skyrocket

And the savings from the federal handout programs will drop in the billions.
send them home! stop all incentives.
feed the families of 17. millions unemployed Americans. That'st who I support.!
This country is failing it's own peolpe who need us now more than ever.
no amnesty .

Most of the fruit being produced in the USA is sold out of the US. All of the fruit and vegies we get here in Texas come from Mexico and Central America. Fruit and vegie producers need cheep labor so they can afford to sell their products for foreign markets. They will do fine if they sell their fruit and vegies here and get rid of their slave labor.

Let's deport all illegal aliens along with their anchors and see if prices skyrocket I'd take the risk.

Yeah, I live in Michigan where we grow gobs and gobs of cherries. Yet when I went to the local WalMart, the cherries were from Washington State and $2.48/lb. Why is that? Could the price be high because those darn cherries were carried 2,500 miles?

The lead story should be IF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS GO, WAGES FOR AMERICAN WORKERS WILL SKYROCKET........

Originally Posted by topsecret10

The lead story should be IF ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS GO, WAGES FOR AMERICAN WORKERS WILL SKYROCKET........

LOL....that's the REAL story!

That requires lots of bodies — bodies that climb, bend and stoop for 10 hours a day in the Florida heat with no overtime, no group health and no 401(k) plan.

So when these workers are sick or injured on the job, they use our medical services for free. Would we rather pay more for produce or subsidize employers so they can have cheap labor. While ethical employers pay these costs, employers of illegals rely on taxpayers to provide necessary benefits to their illegal employees.

Quote:
"Kansas doesn't care about illegal workers. A farmer there simply hops into his combine harvester, slips some Pink Floyd in the CD player, heads out to the fields, and returns three hours later with 15,000 boxes of shredded wheat ready to go."

Reply:
Unfortunately for U.S. citizen workers who used to be able to command hourly wages of $14.50 and up in addition to full benefits and regularly-inspected working conditions in the U.S. meatpacking industry, Kansas cares a great deal about, if not illegal workers, at least cheaper foreign ones. Beside wheat, Kansas is a major producer of beef cattle, and Dodge City, KS, is one of many centers in the middlewest which is home to major meat packing plants. The mayor of Dodge City is now, I believe, of Spanish descent, and the population of the nearby smaller town of Ulysses, KS, where I spent time as a child, is now to my amazement listed as "49% Hispanic". And, while financially conservative, Kansans pride themselves on being liberal and compassionate on "civil rights" and its related "social issues", which ethno-centric national special interest groups unfortunately have managed to turn the question of illegal immigration into whenever possible. This has brought little "compassion" to U.S. citizens and legal residents who have been displaced from formerly good jobs in U.S. meatpacking facilities by imported foreign workers, both legal and illegal.

observations from a state native

And, the more the use of foreign workers, both legal and illegal, replaces native U.S. workers and serves to depresses wage scales across the board throughout the country for those who are employed, obviously the more that everyone will feel any price increase. However, I have read in other places that these predictions of "$5.00 lettuce", etc. that always are made at any suggestion that we enforce U.S. immigration laws either are grossly inflated or simply untrue.

They are forgetting the law of supply and demand. If prices go too high, no one buys. The price then must come down or growers go out of business. They also forget that thousands of small local farms will fill the gaps.
Part of the issue with the take our jobs idea is that millions have office jobs. These folks have never worked in a field and have never worked hard. It would be close to murder to put these guys out to pick tomatoes. There are probably lots of college age kids who need work, but the farmers want more permanent workers
I would expect qualified young men on unemployment assistance to be sent to fill these jobs, if they are physically able. We have got to stop the something for nothing mentality that has gripped this country.