Sure, go for it and watch the American agriculture industry suffer.
You know who else will suffer? All of us because we all like to, you know, eat what the agriculture industry produces for us. Farms will see huge shortages of workers because American workers will not work for the pittance those companies pay migrant workers. As has happened before in Georgia..
The Georgia law, HB 87, which does not take effect until July 1, already has had an effect as farmworkers are staying away for fear of racial profiling. Workers caught with phony documents could be fined up to $250,000 and get 15 years in prison - the same sentence for murder in Georgia. The law also gives police, among other powers, authority to check the immigration status of criminal suspects.
Growers now are scrambling to find enough workers to keep their crops from withering on the vine and rotting on the ground. Each spring and early summer, thousands of undocumented workers, mainly from Florida, travel to Georgia and states further north to work. Charles Hall, executive director of Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Association, said farmers are finding only between 30 and 50 percent of the 11,000 farm hands needed to the harvest their crops, producing a labor shortage that will hit the industry with a loss of $250 million.
The shortage clearly puts the lie to the myth held by critics of U.S. farming practices that desperate unemployed U.S. citizens will do farm work if it is available to them. The Georgia Labor Department released a survey showing that unemployment in Irwin County, where blackberries are a major crop, is at 13 percent, yet very few people went to the fields. Of those who did, the overwhelming majority walked away.
Imagine this on a National level. Produce will rot in the fields across the country creating shortages that will make prices skyrocket. This is beyond stupid. We are a nation of immigrants. We are all, barring those of pure Native American ancestry, descended from immigrants. People need to stop vilifying immigrants. We’re cutting our own throats with this shit.
You know who else will suffer? All of us because we all like to, you know, eat what the agriculture industry produces for us. Farms will see huge shortages of workers because American workers will not work for the pittance those companies pay migrant workers. As has happened before in Georgia..
Imagine this on a National level. Produce will rot in the fields across the country creating shortages that will make prices skyrocket. This is beyond stupid. We are a nation of immigrants. We are all, barring those of pure Native American ancestry, descended from immigrants. People need to stop vilifying immigrants. We’re cutting our own throats with this shit.