TX:Farmers fear impact of illegal immigrant crackdown

Farmers fear impact of illegal immigrant crackdown


Associated Press - August 16, 2007 6:25 AM ET

They speak of fruit rotting in fields, cows going unmilked and suffering in barns, farmhouses being shuttered.

Growers are painting a bleak picture of their industry under new federal immigration policies.

The Bush administration has announced that employers who knowingly keep undocumented workers will be held liable under a new enforcement push. Think tanks that oppose illegal immigration praised the move. They hope it'll turn off the job magnet that's drawn new immigrants.

Buy many growers say their businesses would be hardest hit.

Particularly vulnerable would be fruit operations now hiring thousands of seasonal workers for the peak harvest months of July through September. That because the measure is to take effect in mid-September.

J. Allen Carnes is president of Winter Garden Produce in Uvalde, Texas. He says his company faces "firing employees, whether the documents are wrong or right, with no one to fill those positions."

Carnes said he's already suffered worker shortages in the past few years because of tightened border security.

Texas Farm Bureau legislative director Steve Pringle says the Bush administration's move forces employers into an impossible position. "Either you obey the law and you watch your crop rot in the fields -- or you attempt to try to get the crop out and run the risk of being hit by the federal government."


On the Net:

National Immigration Forum: http://www.immigrationforum.org

American Farm Bureau: http://www.fb.org

Copyright 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Either you obey the law and you watch your crop rot in the fields -- or you attempt to try to get the crop out and run the risk of being hit by the federal government."

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Yes you obay the law you should have been doing for years you putts. If you had followed the law to begin with, you wouldn't be in this position. Now your cheap ass can hire legal Americans or go broke. I think it would be justice to see a picture of you waiting in the unemployment line.

Time to suck it up illegal employers! You are the ones that created this problem in the first place. Its all due to your greed!

Total hogwash - Do these people realize that cows were being milked and chickens were being plucked before the illegals came?

Yessir, I remember - back in the olden days.

Also crops were being harvested. To say no illegals came to harvest crops here would be an untruth. Some illegals have always come across the border and worked in harvests - especially in the Rio Grande Valley.
They came, they worked, they went home. They didn't bring their entire families, enroll them in school, put them on the welfare rolls and register at the maternity clinic.

But mostly in the interior, the harvesting was done by young people, and it provided jobs for lower skilled workers.

Bottom line, if a business has painted itself into a situation in which it can't survive without illegal labor - they deserve to go out of business and let someone who is law abiding take a shot at it.

Those using legal labor can compete - if none are using illegal labor.

When we talk farmers, though, sometimes we are talking big agribusiness - we aren't talking Mom, Dad, and all the fresh faced kiddos.

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Those using legal labor can compete - if none are using illegal labor.

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It will also take trade agreements that are in the best interest of the people of this country and not big business. Cheap imports also undermine the jobs of Americans. We need to put heavy tariffs on imports so that American workers will not be left out in the cold!

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Originally Posted by avenger

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Those using legal labor can compete - if none are using illegal labor.

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It will also take trade agreements that are in the best interest of the people of this country and not big business. Cheap imports also undermine the jobs of Americans. We need to put heavy tariffs on imports so that American workers will not be left out in the cold!

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Granted, but I am talking to the point that Texas farmers are going to just let their crops rot in the field, their cows go unmilked for lack of illegals.

That was the idea that was being put out by this article.

Here is Oregon’s version of the big lie!

Oregon pear growers fear bumper crop could rot
http://www.katu.com/home/video/9180712. ... eo=pop&t=a

I am so sick of their lies. Oregon is overrun with illegals, they just don’t want to pick the crops. They’re to busy taking care of their pot plantations.

Another reason some crops may rot in the field is because, the government pays for crop losses and sometimes the payment is more than could be made off the crop, also if you go to the local produce aisle, you’ll find the most everything is imported from Mexico and Canada.

The growers and the media tried this same thing back during strawberry season. The Oregon strawberry season is shorter and later than the California season; they flood the Oregon market with California berries and by the time the Oregon berries are ripe many don’t want berries anymore, but instead we’re told we don’t have enough illegals.

Sorry for the rant y’all, I’m just sick, sick, sick of it! :x

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Granted, but I am talking to the point that Texas farmers are going to just let their crops rot in the field, their cows go unmilked for lack of illegals.

That was the idea that was being put out by this article.

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Gotcha, Yeah there's no way a business is just going to shut down. Americans have shown that where there is a will there is a way. Innovative thinking is what has made this country so great. Any business (including agriculture) that will just let their product spoil because they don't get their way deserve the consequences. There's that word again...consequences...seems as though it has a lot to do with people's childish behavior.

These stories are 'plants' - no pun.