No. of Recommendations: 7
Most Americans wouldn't do the work for anything the farmers could offer. If they offered enough to get American workers, they probably would go out of business. Here's just one article I found:
https://modernfarmer.com/2021/09/midwest-farmers-f...'If you're not able to find people,' Nielsen said, 'either you do it yourself or you exit that part of the industry.'When an immigrant comes here, works hard and sends 75% of his income back to support his family in his home country, that is noble but not supportive of the American economy.Sure they do. They are the bottom rung of the ladder. All the rungs above benefit. Farmers continue to farm, people get their lettuce, interstate commerce happens. Maybe even international commerce. Those specific workers may not spend most of their income domestically, but that's not the extent of the economic activity that results from their labors. Also, those that bother to get phony IDs end up paying taxes for benefits they will never see (e.g. FICA...or whatever it's called now). That is an injustice to them, but benefits us.
Thought experiment - lets assume that all the immigrants doing jobs American won't do suddenly went away. Would the agricultural businesses, restaurants and hotels just throw up their hands and declare "that's it" and go out of business?Many would go under. That which can be off-shored, would be (you can ship produce...we do it all the time). The economic calamity that would result would be horrendous. Might even trigger a new Depression. I'm not a macro-economist, but removing a key part of any workforce results in bad things. Textiles and steel mostly went bye-bye because Americans are too expensive as a labor force.
Even we (the 1poorfamily) have adjusted our behaviors as service wages have gone up. I don't envy service people, and I don't begrudge their increased wages. They deserve them. But I'm not going to a Brazilian steakhouse at $47 per person. I can no longer eat enough to justify that cost. 1poorkid probably could, but all the old people couldn't.
We need to be resonably assured that when we deport a felon, he stays out. Right now we have deportees that have returned five and six times. There is no deterrent to behaving badly once you are in.There's no way to do that. Once they leave our borders, we have no control over them. So they can come right back if they like. And, yes, there are people that are repeatedly caught and deported. Felon or not. No plan, including any of my ideas, has been devised to address that -of which I am aware-. And the data show that most undocumented persons don't commit crimes of violence. It makes the headlines when they do, but the vast majority are trying to keep their heads down so they go unnoticed and can pick your lettuce for you.
Also, for context, 1poorlady is Asian. We did things the right way. Totally legal every step of the way. So, yes, I resent it when folks try to cheat. It took over a year to get her here, and several more years before she could test for citizenship. But I also am not in the habit of denying reality, and the reality is that they are going to come here. It would behoove us to have a workable system where we know who is here, where they are, and what they are doing. Right now we don't have that.
And that doesn't even get into asylum seekers. Like the Russians fleeing Putin's war, or refugees in Africa fleeing their warlords as their countries get torn asunder, or the Syrian refugees. In those instances we should be part of a global community taking our share of them in.
I don't specify a number because it would be arbitrary. I have no data on how many people need help, and what other countries can do to help also. But we do have caps. 1poorSIL has been waiting for years for her application to come up, and it still hasn't. It could be another 10 years precisely because there are caps. Also, there are "preferences" for people from different regions, different familial relations, etc. I spent so many years filling out forms, I know our legal immigration process pretty well. (Humorous anecdote...I had ARAG at my job. I tried to use them for some immigration questions. I knew more than the lawyer assigned to me. I canceled ARAG the following plan year.)
