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I can't imagine that you would get many native-born young Americans to do farm labor, and if you wanted to attract them you would have to offer much higher wages that illegals or migrant laborers get.
And then retail food prices would sky-rocket, and people would begin buying cheaper imported food....and kerplop! there goes the whole point of the thing.
That argument <bold> has been debunked so many times it's laughable that people still try to use it.
This is anecdotal as it relates my cousin's experience with H2A but it's consistent with most of the articles you find online. One of my cousins owns a large farm in Central California and she said that no one she knows uses H2A, it's a program that just doesn't work well. You have to prove you can't find local labor and then you have to put in your request far in advance of knowing how many workers you need for the harvest, and you have to provide free housing and transportation for the workers. She said it's common to request 30 or 40 workers and only receive 5 and that's after you have invested in acquiring housing for all 40. She is convinced that the only thing that will work is a guest worker program that does not require providing housing and allows workers to follow the harvest which is what they want to do, and what they have been doing for 100 years.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Oldglory
There are good reasons that Americans won't pick crops for a living. It is seasonal, back breaking work and many Americans don't live in rural areas. In short, it's not a career job for Americans thus the unlimited H-2A visas for legal, foreign workers.
Only 2% of illegals are picking crops so how would prices skyrocket? The greedy growers only pocket the profits from their cheap, illegal workers. They pass little to nothing on as savings to the consumer. What they do pass on to us are their enormous social costs so illegal alien labor is no bargain to most taxpayers.
If Illegals were forced out of the workforce in the U.S. via E-Verify several things would most certainly rapidly occur. One would be that good paying to real good paying construction,factory,assembly,dock workers,trades jobs would open up giving legal citizens the jobs they are desperate for. Secondly, wages would rise.
Fix the H2A program if need be, and give all illegal workers here now a temporary,renewable work permit to work agriculture jobs or other low level jobs that the company can PROVE it can't fill any other way but no path to citizenship except to go to the back of the line that others have stood in for years.
Force E-Verify compliance, make it so painful to ignore the law that it will be followed out of self preservation and the need to stay out of jail.
Take a serious look at the H1 programs and start acting like Canada and the U.K. act and that is make it very hard to hire any non citizen. It's not a easy thing as an American to get a job in Canada (at least in the Movie/TV industry if not all others) that's their right as a country and I don't know that I disagree with it.
That argument <bold> has been debunked so many times it's laughable that people still try to use it.
If Illegals were forced out of the workforce in the U.S. via E-Verify several things would most certainly rapidly occur. One would be that good paying to real good paying construction,factory,assembly,dock workers,trades jobs would open up giving legal citizens the jobs they are desperate for. Secondly, wages would rise.
Fix the H2A program if need be, and give all illegal workers here now a temporary,renewable work permit to work agriculture jobs or other low level jobs that the company can PROVE it can't fill any other way but no path to citizenship except to go to the back of the line that others have stood in for years.
Force E-Verify compliance, make it so painful to ignore the law that it will be followed out of self preservation and the need to stay out of jail.
Take a serious look at the H1 programs and start acting like Canada and the U.K. act and that is make it very hard to hire any non citizen. It's not a easy thing as an American to get a job in Canada (at least in the Movie/TV industry if not all others) that's their right as a country and I don't know that I disagree with it.
I agree with most of what you have stated except for the part about giving illegal workers any work permits. I am sure there are enough foreigners waiting in their countries to come here legally to work those agricultural jobs. Why reward illegal behavior? We have enough of our own less educated adults and American youth who would work any other low level jobs.
Yes it is. I am agreeing with the fact it states a "net positive". Your point here?
Then you revert back to "it is all bad"? You drinking right now?
That would explain missing my summation: "Bottom line: the net positives are greater than the net negatives. I'd rather that legal workers filled all our jobs and wages were better, but ignoring reality doesn't suit me either."
"Net positives"? Maybe for a bunch of greedy business owners, def NOT for people who are the worker bees.
Exactly, every middle aged white male sitting around somewhere in the Rust Belt or flyover country whining about the loss of their manufacturing jobs and the undocumented immigrants keeping them down should be on their way to California right now but we all know they want handouts not jobs.
You forgot to add jobless American Black people to your post.
I can't imagine that you would get many native-born young Americans to do farm labor, and if you wanted to attract them you would have to offer much higher wages that illegals or migrant laborers get.
And then retail food prices would sky-rocket, and people would begin buying cheaper imported food....and kerplop! there goes the whole point of the thing.
1 thing many people WON'T face is Mexico's birthrate's dropping like a rock so, where will those illegal alien slaves be found? For every Mexican who comes to the US, at least 1 Mexican goes back home TO Mexico in 2017.
They tried not hiring Mexicans to pick watermelons a year or so ago in Alabama. They only hired Americans. Well as if we didn't know the results. Americans would takeoff and never come back. Americans don't want to do that kind of work. It's too hard. We are kind of spoiled and won't do that kind of Manuel Labor.
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Tominftl
They tried not hiring Mexicans to pick watermelons a year or so ago in Alabama. They only hired Americans. Well as if we didn't know the results. Americans would takeoff and never come back. Americans don't want to do that kind of work. It's too hard. We are kind of spoiled and won't do that kind of Manuel Labor.
Same thing happened when neighboring Georgia tightened up checks on undocumented / illegals. Despite getting prison labor to take up the slack, about $140 million in produce was left rotting in the fields. So either be willing to pay more for produce at the grocery store, or keep the status quo on migrant workers. Or at the very least loosen the requirements for guest workers. Nothing in life is free and certainly no good thing is. You gotta figure out all the prices of the decision before buying into the decision.
Want to cut down on illegals? Start paying farm workers more AND be prepared to pay more for vegetables.
Wanna keep buying your vegetables cheap? Then accept migrant workers to pick it for you, even if they are not hear legally.
Kids aren't going to do that work and neither are very many adult citizens, it's horribly hard and backbreaking, that's why the Government will never require e-verify agriculture depends on undocumented labor
So you're saying farm work is horrible and back breaking? My grandparents did back breaking farm work. Their parents before them did and before them and so on for hundreds of years. They had very few health problems. They lived to 90 and hardly ever even went to the doctor.
My Grandpa at 70 built my parent's 5 bedroom house and all their barns himself. I guess that "back breaking work" isn't such a bad thing.
Sure beats type II diabetes and heart attacks at 40 which is in the future for half of our young people.
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