brassmonkey

From tending the plants to harvesting the grapes, it takes skill and a strong work ethic to produce the winery's pinot noir and chardonnay, and native-born Americans just aren't willing to work that hard, Patricia Dudley said as a cold rain drenched the vineyard in the hills of Oregon.

"Who's going to come out here and do this work when they deport them all?" she asked. President Donald Trump's hard line against immigrants in the U.S. illegally has sent a chill through the nation's agricultural industry, which fears a crackdown will deprive it of the labor it needs to plant, grow and pick the crops that feed the country.

Fruit and vegetable growers, dairy and cattle farmers and owners of plant nurseries and vineyards have begun lobbying politicians at home and in Washington to get them to deal with immigration in a way that minimizes the harm to their livelihoods.

Some of the farm leaders are Republicans who voted for Trump and are torn, wanting border security but also mercy toward laborers who are not dangerous criminals. Farming uses a higher percentage of illegal labor than any other U.S. industry, according to a Pew Research Center study.

Immigrants working illegally in this country accounted for about 46 percent of America's roughly 800,000 crop farmworkers in recent years, according to an Associated Press analysis of data from the U.S. Departments of Labor and Agriculture.

Stepped-up deportations could carry "significant economic implications," a 2012 U.S. Department of Agriculture study said. If America's unauthorized labor force shrank 40 percent, for example, vegetable production could drop by more than 4 percent, the study said.

The American Farm Bureau Federation says strict immigration enforcement would raise food prices 5 to 6 percent because of a drop in supply and because of the higher labor costs farmers could face. In addition to proposing a wall at the Mexican border, Trump wants to hire 10,000 more Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and has served notice that he intends to be more aggressive than the Obama administration in deporting immigrants.

ICE agents have arrested hundreds of immigrants since Trump took office, though how much of a change from the Obama administration that represents is a matter of debate. Field hands have been among those targeted, with apple pickers detained in upstate New York and Guatemalans pulled over in Oregon on their way to a forest to pick a plant used in floral arrangements.

It doesn't appear the arrests themselves have put a sizable dent in the agricultural workforce yet, but the fear is taking its toll. Some workers in Oregon are leaving for job sites as early as 1 a.m. and staying away from check-cashing shops on payday to avoid dragnets. Farm employers are worried about losing their workforces.

"They say, 'Don't go out, don't get drunk, don't do nothing illegal' because they need us too. They worry too," said Moses Maldonado, who is in the U.S. illegally and has worked for nearly four decades tending wine grapes and picking fruit in Oregon.

In Los Banos, California, asparagus farmer Joe Del Bosque said workers are so afraid of being arrested in the field that he struggled to find enough hands in March to pick his crop. When immigration attorney Sarah Loftin held a recent seminar in the Oregon wine-region town of Newberg to talk about immigrants' legal rights, she was surprised to see about half of those present were winery owners or farmers.

By law, job seekers must provide documents establishing their eligibility to work in the U.S. But the papers are often fake. Many agricultural employers say that it's not their responsibility - and that they lack the expertise - to determine if they're genuine.

At the same time, they say that U.S.-born workers have little interest at laboring in the dirt and the cold at the crack of dawn. As 18 Guatemalans in hoodies and rubber boots toiled in such conditions recently in Oregon's Willamette Valley, their boss expressed admiration for their willingness to do the back-breaking work he said native-born Americans won't do.

"Homeless people are camped in the fir forest over there," the farmer said, pointing to a stand of trees. "And they're not looking for work." He lamented that crackdowns may force him to retire because he won't be able to find workers. Fearing reprisals from federal agents, he spoke on condition of anonymity and didn't want even his crop identified.

Some immigration hardliners say people who are in the U.S. illegally steal jobs from Americans. But a 2013 study by an economist at the Center for Global Development looked at farms in North Carolina and found that immigrant manual laborers had "almost zero" effect on the job prospects of native-born U.S. workers.

"It appears that almost all U.S. workers prefer almost any labor-market outcome - including long periods of unemployment - to carrying out manual harvest and planting labor," Michael Clemens wrote. While lobbying for visa and immigration reforms, agricultural employers are also looking into contingency plans such as mechanization or a switch to less labor-intensive crops. In Vermont, officials are considering a vocational program to train inmates in dairy farming.

Dudley, the vineyard owner, isn't optimistic about some of the alternatives. "I don't trust that temps off the street, or jailhouse labor, or whatever alternative they come up with would work," she said.

AP reporters Scott Smith in Fresno, California; Wilson Ring in Montpelier, Vermont; Gillian Flaccus in Salem, Oregon; and Paul Wiseman in Washington contributed to this story

article...

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Bladewire

Are these non H-2A visa holders?

directfiesta

Americans will fill those jobs ....

Barry-xlovecam

Maybe, harvest robotics could be used to replace the illegal workers. Get ready for $10/head lettuce ... Out of work coal miners don't want the jobs ...

tammix

LOL! shure demanding $20 an hour, umbrellas permanently and a Juicy Bar every 100 yards
"Not even colored americans would take those jobs" according to former Mexico's president Vicinti Fox

Horatio Caine

Those kinds of "americans" are allergic to any kind of work, not just farming.

brassmonkey

leaving our wet friends there stealing money is not an option. they have to go! you took in syrians now take in this trash!!!

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Horatio Caine

You mean earning money?
Stealing is when you rush to the nearest Walmart at 12:01 AM of the 1st. Thats stealing.
PS: 6 mo dayz dogg. six! long azz tyme.

escorpio

Six more days? Damn. Long azz tyme.

Paul Markham

Americans aren't prepared to do those jobs for the lousy wages the farmers want to pay.

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pimpmaster9000

Get ready to lose even more money when imports become even more attractive no w that your chubby friends won't do the work for wet money...You can not explain to red hats that action equals reaction...The concept goes waaay over their head....Waaaaay...

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Paul Markham

They would if they got paid the same for doing the job.

Thirty years ago, the state’s farm workers were the best paid in the country. Now some don’t even make minimum wage

Average Salary for Industry: Coal Mining

Interesting to know that you're in favour of slave labour if it means you can live cheaper. Or that Americans are inferior to others. We get our lettuces picked here by citizens, just like most countries all around the world.

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Paul Markham

They're allergic to working for slave wages. Look at the facts and not the spin.

How do you think other countries get fruit picked or how it was before the Farmers were able to get illegal migrants to work for slave wages?

Unless you think Americans are inferior.

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Paul Markham

Well he would say that, wouldn't he?

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pimpmaster9000

paul logic:

US workers will now get paid more, but it will somehow not raise the price of the product and somehow sales will increase and somehow imports will not become more and more attractive and somehow other countries will not impose duties on exports if the USA imposes duties on imports...

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Barry-xlovecam

Jack-Ma-In-30-years-the-best-CEO-could-be-a-robot - Story

You already lost Paul. Time waits for no man.

Horatio Caine

Other countries have migrants picking fruits - Eastern Europeans, Baltics. We have Mexicans.
Blacks won't lift a finger no matter how much you pay them. And why should they? Riding on welfare ticket for 3 generation, why bother?
Paul, is stupid your hobby or you doing it full time now?

jbvryant

America voted their future to make it great again...

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Paul Markham

Bank of England Governor Mark Carny on Automation.

You already lost Barry. Time waits for no man.

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Bladewire

brassmonkey

so just don't fix the problem?? you sound like a damn fool!!

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Barry-xlovecam

I heard the same stupid wailing when the auto plants were automated in the early 1980's. Meantime, some have resurrected and many have fallen by the wayside.

The government will tax robots -- they are just property. The robots will put a lot of workers out of work. Best not be one of them.

** that lettuce harvester is what I had in mind -- less jobs, higher wages, better production and higher profits and/or lowered costs. More winners than losers

Adapt or die.

Bladewire

This is why business is going to push for robots to be legally deemed legal persons in the future. You don't think they will? A corporation is'a legal person, robots will be too. Multibillion dollar multinational corporations are evil.

Future robots will be legal walking/rolling talking/silent individual indentured servants of their corporation.

Paul Markham

So how do fruits get picked in those countries the migrants come from?

You have Mexicans for the same reasons Europe has Eastern Europeans, to keep wages low.

As for unemployed being too lazy, force them to do the job or not get benefits. Or face rising taxes or debt as the country pays one person to do nothing while import another to do his job.

Horatio stupid is your hobby.



Read this. It says unemployment is driving up debt. It does it in two ways, drives up the cost of supporting the unemployed and removes people from being tax payers to being reliant on the State.





All done to keep wages down and drive up unemployment benefits. While you win, on one hand, you lose on the other. Maybe if Government borrowing was limited and taxes were raised to mirror the costs, you might not be so stupid. It may just reveal the real costs.

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Bladewire

You just posted a graph from 2010 and 2 other graphs from 2014 to prove that in 2017 unemployment is driving debt up and wages are being kept down.

Can you post CURRENT data to make you stance instead of 3-7 year old data?

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Horatio Caine

How fucking stupid are you Paul? on scale of 1 to 10? My guess is 11.
Who picks fruits in Mexico? probably Mexicans and some from other Central American countries. Its not like all of a sudden ALL of them moved to the US to pick fruits.
BTW, Lots of our fruits come from overseas as well.

And who said anything about unemployment, you old fool? Illegals aren't eligible for unemployment benefits - Brassmonkey are. And they have zero plans on getting back to the job market.