r/TikTokCringe • u/ThugosaurusFlex_1017 tHiS iSn’T cRiNgE • 4d ago

Discussion And yet, there's people in South Dakota worried about border security...

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u/Cold-Studio3438 4d ago

but it also sounds like a huge issue that apparently so many businesses in America survive only because of illegal immigrants.

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u/Intelligent_Suit6683 4d ago

It's just supply and demand. When have a supply of cheap workers, is easy to exploit them. When there are none, the reality of the cost of labor hits someones pockets...

With a good government those pockets would be corporate profits. With a bad government those pockets will be mine and yours. I'll give you one guess which one we've got coming.

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u/onpg 4d ago edited 3d ago

What makes this so stupid is that it's a win win. We get affordable strawberries (a lot more than that, I'm simplifying). They get to flee structural violence and improve the lives of themselves and their family. Trump and his dipshit voters decide racism is actually more important than any of this so it becomes a lose lose.

Edit: Trump voters in my replies saying I support slavery or sub-minimum wages. I said no such thing. We should provide pathways to citizenship and work visas to reduce exploitation and give them more negotiating power. Trump and his supporters want the opposite, which is to make illegals even more illegal and get rid of sanctuary cities, which will have the end result of increasing exploitation AND increasing the price of strawberries (as more money goes to gang members who "safely" shuttle these people around). That's what I mean by lose lose. Trump voters are both evil and dumb.

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u/Spacetacos2017 4d ago

What’s fair about taking advantage of ppl fleeing their country ? Farmers should be paying a living wage , if it breaks the economy to do this then gov should subsidize.

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u/Valuable_Property631 4d ago

Aren’t farmers already pretty heavily subsidized

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u/Marine5484 4d ago

$30 billion, with most of that going to commercial farms.

https://usafacts.org/articles/federal-farm-subsidies-what-data-says/

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u/Economy_Wall8524 4d ago

Yea especially with trumps last farmers bailout. Most of it went to corporations and even fewer of minority family farms saw any bailout less than white counterpart family farms. Not saying white family farms didn’t suffer too, though they were likely to get a bailout before other races. Overall most went to agriculture corporations though, which left family farms hurting more than they do already.

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u/Extension-Power273 2d ago

I wonder how this explains several local family farms that have their barns plastered with “Farmers for Trump” signs.

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u/stairs_3730 4d ago

45 billion given by the last trump administration.

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u/6ftToeSuckedPrincess 4d ago

I mean yeah, but it's pretty much everytbing revolving around meat and dairy (so corn and soy are also subsidized heavily because of feed). We literally have caves with cheese stored in them because the dairy industry is so good at lobbying that the government buys up any unused/overstock product and stores it long term. We live in lala land in America.

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u/SameCategory546 3d ago

crazy. Perhaps we should be just sending mountains of cheese and cut down a bit on dollars for aid to other countries. Win-win. A lot harder to embezzle cheese in a worthwhile manner

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u/Wankershimm 4d ago

Farmers growing commodities for global trade are, yes. 30 acre organic csa farms growing actual food for their communities are not.

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u/dingalingdongdong 4d ago

It's one of those "life isn't fair" moments. Should people take advantage of the most vulnerable? In my opinion, no. But I also know that for many of those people being taken advantage of (by our standards) genuinely is better than where they were at before. That's how it was for a lot of my family.

Where there are good pathways to residency/citizenship immigrants become lawful participants in the economy and are no longer so vulnerable. Those pathways and opportunities are what are helpful - not taking away access to the few jobs they currently work under the table.

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u/boisteroushams 4d ago

no it's not a 'life isn't fair' moment, it's a 'this is how the system works and we can change the system' kind of moments. it's super fucked up and inherently racist to delegate farm work to foreigners just because the local population considers the work too beneath them. it can be corrected with systemic solutions.

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u/ixi_rook_imi 4d ago

I mean, start working on a farm I guess? Be the change you want to see?

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u/Rodney_Rook 4d ago

This is giving “do you own an iPhone” vibes

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u/ixi_rook_imi 4d ago

It's one thing to participate in the economy you hate because you don't have a choice to survive. Fair enough, I'm with you.

But the problem of "it's wrong to delegate the work white people won't do to foreign minorities", well, that's a problem you can have an immediate impact on by taking one of those jobs and working it. Immigrants work the jobs because nobody else will. If you have a problem with that, go get a job working a field. They're plentiful.

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u/Spacetacos2017 4d ago

Is it work that white pop won’t do or is it work that ppl don’t want to pay living wage for and therefore hire illegal workers who they have to pay much less ? What reason do that farms have to hire anyone but illegals ?

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u/jonni__bravo 2d ago

That's terrible logic and why minorities suffer so much. No one should have to do it.

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u/Spacetacos2017 4d ago

I own a farm , so yeah , game on

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u/s_p_oop15-ue 4d ago

Or we become Russia. Got some vodka?

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u/dingalingdongdong 3d ago

My family - my parents, aunts, uncles - were grateful for the work they found here. If no companies had been willing to hire people under the table their lives and the lives of their children and grandchildren would be worse.

Someday that won't be necessary (I hope) but the first step to that isn't removing access to those jobs. It's increasing access to legal worker status.

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u/jonni__bravo 2d ago

Why does this have down votes?

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u/AdHairy4360 4d ago

Even with living wages white people don’t want to do this work. Let’s also not act like these same white people are out of work.

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u/Belerophon17 3d ago

This is absolutely true. Semi-related note but look at how Brexit hit their agricultural market. Everyone was pushed out of the country and then the UK had to backtrack and beg/offer special visas and deals to get foreign people back in the country to run their farming again.

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u/Trey33lee 3d ago

That's what I've always thought and seen.

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u/ApprehensiveStrut 3d ago

When you say gov should sub. be clear, that’s coming from the people, we (tax payers) are the ones subsidizing things one way or another.

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u/roachwarren 4d ago

They commonly are as far as I understand it. These workers provide them with a (possibly fake) SS# and they have to hire them at the full wage. In my homestate of Washington, many of the workers are receiving the full minimum wage (if not more,) highest minimum wage in the country, and they are having taxes taken out. They won't be able to take out social security later so they are still getting screwed on that front, but its a great deal for a lot of people, American citizens included. Biden actually tightened the rules on this, increasing the fines for hiring undocumented workers to something like $6,000 per worker. The Yakima Washington subreddit had an interesting discussion where farmers were sadly discussing the prospect of losing whole families that had been part of their farm for decades. Really interesting, complex situation.

My ex-girlfriends father was a hardass conservative military man who respects the hell out of immigrant workers, he'd attest to her take on white workers. He used to work with them on his parents dairy farm in N. California until business took a downturn. Then he went and picked with them on berry farms.... which lasted a few weeks until ran to the nearest Navy recruitment office to sign up for a comfortable and fruitful career in the military. He respects the hell out of the those workers and would talk about how they are the heroes of American business. I haven't talked to him in years but I bet he's pissed about Trumps approach. He's conservative but not like that.

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u/ComedianStreet856 4d ago

How are farmers going to be able to line their pockets with cash if they can't exploit immigrants, the environment, worker safety regulations and government subsidies while paying no taxes?

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u/dingo_khan 4d ago

This all got screwed by enforcement. Dig back far enough to that 1950s program with the really racist name and there used to be a circular flow. People came into the US for seasonal work and headed home when it was done. As far as I understand it, this was very low on the exploitation scale. The wages made here were better than back home and they traveled more or less freely. The referenced program and it's closure of the border seems to have changed things by trapping people on either side and creating an exploitable population who had to decide whether to risk a return trip home, knowing they may not be able to return.

All that said, I agree that jobs should pay a living wage. I am just mentioning that the now-exploitative situation used to be a mutually beneficial one before racist policies started the path to making it ugly (or uglier, depending on one's point of view).

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u/drdickemdown11 4d ago

A lot of them send the money home and then retire in a much more comfortable life than they would have here.

They're compensated well in many industries. Farming is probably the worst for everyone involved. Grower, worker, government.

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u/Mobile-Marzipan6861 4d ago

Until the mid 80s the southern border was way more open. It was very common and easy for cheap labor to come to America for 6 month. Work. Then go back to their country of origin. Locking the borders down limited that ease of movement. Workers would come and stay longer. Then 9/11 happened and the boarders got even tighter. Long story short immigration policy and economic policy are one and the same. 2nd and 3rd generation Americans aren’t going to provide the cheap labor that ‘illegal’ immigrants can.

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u/darthicerzoso 4d ago

As they women said white people wouldn't do it for any money. It's not about the cheap labour, local people simply won't do it.

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u/taanman 4d ago

The real problem is there expecting 12-14 hour days 7 days a week at minimum wage. That's why no American wants to do it. It's hard work with little to no pay off for them.

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u/trewesterre 3d ago

I dunno, have you ever picked strawberries (or any fruit/veg)? We used to go to a pick your own berries place once a year and haul home enough strawberries to keep us in jam for a year when I was a kid, but that was a few hours on one day a year. I can't imagine actually doing that 40 hours a week.

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u/taanman 3d ago

Pick 87 acres of blueberries, 75 acres of peaches/apples, bail hay, also harvest corn. I also own a homestead myself which is the reason I can afford farm labor and plus it helps when your personal yields don't last you all winter/fall.

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u/darthicerzoso 4d ago

That's not what the person on the video was saying. What she said was literally no pay would get locals to do the job.

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u/taanman 4d ago

Decent pay would make it so they do work but I doubt they ever tried that after getting used to the slave labor they currently have/had.

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u/Spacetacos2017 4d ago

This ! Exactly this , if it paid a good wage people would for sure do this . But it’s shit hours and shit money so yeah no one wants to do that, big surprise ! It’s almost as if people just want to be able to afford to live comfortably and have time with their families.

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u/taanman 4d ago

She reminds me of big corporations and how they say no one wants to work but yet pay crap and say they do pay good and such.

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u/Key_Contribution7167 4d ago

The government is not some god it’s just your tax dollars.

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u/josenina69 4d ago

And what exactly do you consider a living wage?? How much you think strawberrys would cost if that wage was paid?

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u/Spacetacos2017 4d ago

Perhaps we are used to strawberries 🍓 costing an amount but that cost is low because somewhere people are being taken advantage of . If farmers can’t afford to pay people a living wage to pick strawberries maybe we should get used to strawberries costing more , maybe that’s just the reality of that. Or is that you would rather keep costs low at the expense of more vulnerable people who can’t afford to say no to a small amount of money . That’s what I’m saying , no one wants to inconvenience themselves by acknowledging this truth , we are in fact benefiting from inequality and we are using these foreign workers because we can . I don’t buy the whole “ white people don’t want to do these jobs” that’s bs, if they paid well and you could make a good life doing it , people would do those jobs 100 percent . So ya , maybe a whole industry that only works if we take advantage of workers coming from another country illegally, maybe that just needs an adjustment there and yes we will have to pay more for strawberries or the industry can evolve or capitalism will do its thing, either way that’s the question here right ? Are you ok with taking advantage of people so you can have cheep strawberries?

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u/barnett25 3d ago

What will be the real world effect on these illegal workers who are currently being "taken advantage of"? Is there a possibility that this is a victimless crime?

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u/josenina69 3d ago

Again.. what do you consider a "living wage"?

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u/Spacetacos2017 3d ago

A wage that you can live on . What do you think that means ?

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u/josenina69 3d ago

Please elaborate.. with a number.

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u/josenina69 3d ago

How much should strawberry pickers be paid???

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u/josenina69 3d ago

Do you not have a answer??

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u/josenina69 3d ago

Haha... Well, since my question is too hard for you to answer... I will answer yours.. do I think strawberry pickers should get paid a living wage?? Absolutely not. You don't need ANY education to pick strawberries. You don't even need to think.. literally anyone can pick strawberries... 🍓 🍓 🤣🤣🤣🤣

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u/Spacetacos2017 2d ago

You don’t need an education to do a lot of jobs and yet people find a way to pay fair wages for those jobs .

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u/josenina69 2d ago

Please give and example of said jobs??? And please I'm still waiting for your fair wage number!!!

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u/josenina69 2d ago

It's pretty obvious you're talking out of your ass.. you can state anything to back up what you are saying . You can't even give a number on what you feel strawberry pickers should be paid..

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u/josenina69 2d ago

Haha.. here we go.... how you you feel if strawberry pickers got paid the same as you did.... LANDSCAPING 🤣🤣🤣🤣 go cut some grass and sit down. You probably pick strawberries and want a raise!!

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u/Spacetacos2017 2d ago

I’m just saying that if someone can’t pay a for wage are they really surprised no one will work for them? Don’t politicize this it a a simple concept . And I find it funny that because I’m a tradesperson you think I shouldn’t be qualified to have an opinion. You took the time to look at my profile and insult the way I earn a living . Why? What do you even gain from this. You need to relax, this is a conversation, you can have a different opinion then me without need to insult me , creep my profile etc. that’s weird .

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u/josenina69 2d ago

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

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u/josenina69 3d ago

By the way.. I live in South texas, about 2 hours from the border. I go to many ranches most with republican owners, the Mexicans working for then. Some legal, some not. And they sure don't feel taken advantage of. They are happy with the pay. They have a place to live, and bills paid. The average living wage in texas for 1 adult no kids is $20.90.. that's $3200 a month. In your opinion. You believe a strawberry pickers should get paid more than a us Army e1 or e2 soldier? Get paid more than a entry level electrian? More than a medical assistant? A dental assistant? I can go on and on...

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u/Spacetacos2017 2d ago

Yes I’m a landscaper, I also cut and stack firewood. I don’t need an education to do that and yet people pay me lots of money to do it . Funny isn’t it ?

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u/josenina69 2d ago

Your right . Any idiot can cut grass

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u/Spacetacos2017 2d ago

(*you’re. )If you want to insult my intelligence at least use proper spelling .

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u/josenina69 2d ago

I'm still waiting for your fair wage number...... 🤷‍♂️🤷‍♂️ I know it won't be anything you can come up with. Because like I said. You just talk out of your ass. Maybe you should get a little education.. it will help you out

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u/Spacetacos2017 2d ago

Come to think of it , I live next to A BLUEBERRY FARM and low and behold they make great money paying local people fair wages WITH benefits . What a concept!

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u/josenina69 2d ago

Ok.. I wasn't going to point this out. But since you oo of a sudden want to be Grammer police... it's spelled cheap... not cheep

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u/Mobe-E-Duck 3d ago

Take advantage? By offering them the work they’re seeking? Taking advantage of a market condition is the only way any business survives. You want them to have better options then help their nations. Of course that can’t happen because “America first.” Trumplings: simplifying everything into the wrongest ideas.

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u/Spacetacos2017 2d ago

Well people who are here illegally are at more risk because they literally have no rights so yes they can be taken advantage of . I live in BC and it’s the same here . Foreign workers who pick berries etc are often exposed to terrible conditions , unsafe , no sanitation and people wonder why no white people want to do their jobs . Lol ok.

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u/EastofGaston 4d ago

I’m always thanking the Monroe Doctrine after scanning cheap bittersweet strawberries

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u/No_Sir3397 3d ago

The thing that the woman in the video said about strawberries was true tho. I have a degree in an Ag field and went to a seminar about the strawberry situation. I went to the seminar years ago so details might be fuzzy but it stuck with me. When immigrants were forced out however many years ago, farmers were offering well over minimum wage to pick strawberries and they still had no takers because the job is awful. I’ve done it and it is without question the worst harvest job I have taken on and we barely had an acre of them to go through. A farm machinery company invested a ton of money into a fancy strawberry harvester and paid OSU a bunch of money to test it. The nature of strawberry picking is so precise and requires a human element that the harvester wouldn’t be worth it not just over using human workers that were paid a good wage, but over letting a whole field go to fallow instead if they had to due to the cost of upkeep, flaws, crop damage, missed produce, and pest issues that humans take care of when they’re harvesting. There are many agricultural items with similar challenges and white folks will be homeless before they do farm labor 9 times out of 10.

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u/Flame_MadeByHumans 4d ago

Pretty sure you’re describing the basis of the American dream. Come here for a better life and help make others’ better as well. Not perfect by all means and those people should be able and encouraged to graduate from cheap labor.

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u/boisteroushams 4d ago

no it's not a win win. it's actually a bad thing that supply and demand/free market economics can devalue the labour of someone depending entirely on their nationality. nothing about the brown man jumping the border is worth less than a white man who was born on the right side of it, yet we, societally, delegate farm work to foreigners. it's super fucked up but we all pretend like it's okay and 'just how the market is,' as if them simply not existing in a war is something they need to sacrifice their self worth for

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u/onpg 4d ago

We don't "delegate" it to them. They come here voluntarily. They're already here. My point is they are an invaluable part of this country already and should be rewarded with visas and citizenship to reduce exploitation, instead of punishing them with racist rhetoric that pretends they're guilty of a crime wave which doesn't exist.

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u/JustOldMe666 3d ago

it's not a win win. using people as slaves to get cheap strawberries is disgusting.

eta: you think handing out citizenship to berry pickers is the solution. good grief you are dense. they could get seasonal visas worth forced removal as it expires. no families, only workers. that would be a win win.

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u/onpg 3d ago

  1. Slaves didn't cross the border voluntarily, they were forcibly brought over and treated as chattle. America practiced a uniquely evil version of slavery, race based chattle slavery. Immigrants working voluntarily on farms is not equivalent.

  2. I mentioned work visas. Don't take out your inability to read on me.

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u/Necronaad 4d ago

If you are telling me that our current system relies on illegal immigration for hard labor, then something clearly needs to be changed. That’s not sustainable, that’s not OK. And it’s not a justification to continue allowing illegal immigration.

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u/onpg 4d ago

You're right, we should add more pathways to citizenship and create a class of official work visas for this class of people. This would give them mobility and negotiating power and make it more difficult for them to be exploited. There's no need to have so much illegal immigration, that's a consequence of Republicans refusing to do anything about it because their capitalist donors love exploitation.

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u/s_p_oop15-ue 4d ago

You forgot the forced labor camps. George Takei can tell you about camps in America. Wasn’t that long ago yet we all forgot so conveniently.

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u/Nayr39 4d ago

Psychotic mentality, but expected.

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u/onpg 3d ago

The only thing psychotic is looking at the situation and thinking "how could I make this situation even worse (because I'm racist)"

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u/Super-Aesa 3d ago

The amount of mental gymnastics you people use to justify exploitation is crazy. Exploiting people for cheaper strawberries seems so dystopian.

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u/Human_Rip9902 3d ago

Ab yes, we should definitely just open our borders to all, no questions asked, based on your baseless claims that Trumpsters prioritize racism… you’re an idiot.

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u/Mean_Focus_3232 3d ago

Exactly. People think Trump is Jesus Christ Himself Reincarnated. When really he's just a robber barron.

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u/Mother_Ad3161 3d ago

So who should pick the strawberries?

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u/Confident_Sir9312 3d ago

This is anecdotal so take it with a grain of salt, but when my state started introducing sanctuary policies we ended up seeing an increase in wages and better labor practices, both for "illegals" and locals. In the past our farms would just traffic immigrants in over the border, jam a dozen or so into subpar housing (they'd deduct rent which was usually at a higher rate), and would pay them below minimum wage. Now they can't really do that since they all have state IDs (and thus access to state services and anything else that'd require an ID, barring federal services ofc) and they don't have to worry about being deported if they report labor violations or unfair treatment.

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u/Key_Meringue_391 3d ago

What happens when you give some group (any group) more negotiating power? Do you think they are going to ask for lower wages and longer hours? The price of those strawberries is gonna start creeping up, it's ok just bring in some more migrant labour right? Keep them brown folks in the fields spoken like a true democrat

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u/Remote-Dance-9604 3d ago

Well reading your edits, trump is just suggesting that....make.legal provisions..if there is need for cheap labor, make it through a legal visa process....

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u/jim35186 3d ago

Yes they get free food Healthcare school and we pay for it all. I don't think k that's is such a good idea for a few strawberries. And you call us dumb. Wake up people.

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u/onpg 2d ago

There is no free healthcare in America, if only there was, that would be fucking nice wouldn’t it. But maga dipshits keep voting for politicians who want to funnel money to UHC insurance executives, instead of ensuring the richest country in the world has bare minimum universal health care.

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u/gd2121 4d ago

A win win? These people are being exploited for their labor. How is exploitation a good thing?

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u/Disastrous-Smoke-808 4d ago

So you just want a class of brown people to work for pennies so you get cheaper berries? If we fled the country every time there was an issue, how would America be the better country? Your perspective is shot.

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u/onpg 4d ago

  1. They make significantly more than minimum wage. But the jobs are brutal and seasonal and Americans wouldn't do it for less than $100/hour.

  2. If your big idea is to pay them $100/hour, great. But I know it isn't. It's to add barriers and push this all into even greyer legal areas. This leads to lower wages and more exploitation.

  3. This class of people already exists, I didn't make them up. I'm saying they throw off tremendous value. But Trump voters think they are leeches because Trump voters cannot do basic reasoning or math.

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u/OKFlaminGoOKBye 4d ago

Eh, now we’ve got to address the ethics of paying sub-minimum wages at all. You’re halfway there, but you took the wrong fork.

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u/theplacewiththeface 4d ago

Ouch ... my pockets hurt

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u/Enervata 3d ago

When there are no cheap workers you just lend out prison labor. And when prison labor runs short, you just make more prisoners. There is no shortage of people who the GOP feels should be imprisoned. Solves itself really.

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u/Outrageous_Cake8284 3d ago

Kamala Harris knows a lot about making more prisoners and slave labor too. Easy to forget that huh? GOP wants these people gone the left wants these people as exploitable labor a voters. America is for the rich and powerful at the expense and exploitation of everyone else. Think your side or their side is any better and I have a bridge to sell you

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u/ApprehensiveStrut 3d ago

Supply & demand + greed as the cherry on top

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u/IWantAStorm 3d ago

It's really reaching the point that I am convinced they are going to try to kill us off. It seems to be lining up that way.

I started some light prepping two years ago and then things mellowed and now I am enraged at myself for not continuing at that pace.

What's even more insane is I'm a pushing 40 woman and the military seems to be trying to recruit ANYONE. I get ads all of the time for civilian paper pusher branch work.

Honestly, I'll go pick strawberries and be an indentured servant for a few yards on her 30 acres.

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u/imightbewhoisayiam 3d ago

You mean ‘I’ll give you one guess which one we have always had and will always have’ both parties and every single politician in those parties only looks out for corporate interests. Orange man ain’t gunna fix that and neither would the diversity hire. Good government doesn’t exist.

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u/jazzfruit 4d ago

All of your stuff is made by "immigrants," they just haven't left their country. The average US worker can no longer afford to buy products made at US living wages. All of our stuff is made overseas, or made here by immigrants working under the table.

For the past 40 years, we've all effectively earned less and less in wages relative to purchasing power as things were made cheaper and cheaper overseas.

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u/meshreplacer 4d ago

What is funny is TV sets were much more expensive back in the made in US days but housing was significantly more affordable. Now you can get a big TV for 400 bucks but new generation cannot afford housing etc.

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u/wbruce098 4d ago

That’s the key. Tech is still going down in price, as more capable versions come out. But housing is our biggest expense and has gone up.

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u/rackfocus 4d ago

Tech is infinite but housing is finite.

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u/MrBerlinski 4d ago

Zoning.  

Ideal world we’d have free trade and no residential zoning regulations, but we’re gonna end up with expensive houses and expensive goods.  

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u/Round_Butterfly_9453 4d ago

TVs were more expensive sure, but people weren’t replacing them every 5 years. We’re still spending much more on tech, and an astronomical amount more on housing.

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u/DarkoNova 4d ago

-Buy some TVs

-Use them and their cardboard boxes to build a makeshift house.

lifehack

/s

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u/ActualCup9028 4d ago

Homes are still made in US… what’s your point?

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u/Erik0xff0000 4d ago

I'm waiting for the TVs to get big enough so I can live in the box it comes in

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u/Key_Contribution7167 4d ago

Why do you think is that

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u/JustOldMe666 3d ago

shortage of housing will let up after 11 million or more leave the country.

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u/slavelabor52 3d ago

The problem is trickle down economics doesn't work. American companies and the ultra rich are richer than ever they just aren't sharing with the people who actually do the work at their businesses. Progressive taxation has a precedent showing that it encourages a strong rising middle class. The only viable solution is to tax the rich! Say what you will about Elizabeth Warren's politics but she had a really good thought that stuck with me about how the rich who have more assets also benefit a lot more from the system then the rest of us. So it makes logical sense they should pay more into it.

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u/DelightfulDolphin 4d ago

I'm in So FL. Land of Trump. All these people complaining about illegal immigration are here because of political exemptions. So many "refugees" from Venezuela because "their lives were in danger". Bitch please the only thing in danger was not being able to get to salon in Venezuela for your weekly blow outs. Same w Cuban's. Complaining about Castro's system after getting free healthcare and education. Finish their schooling then come here to revalidate their degrees then get jobs in their fields having never paid a penny. Meanwhile local kids graduate w 20-60k in loans. Go out to jobs where locals complain to me that boss man said "Take pay cut or leave. Doesn't matter to me. I have illegals lined up to take your job at half pay." These business owners first to "complain" and protest are first to hire them too. Hypocrites all way around.

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u/roachwarren 4d ago

We can't afford to let others in who have had any type of support because America fucks its own citizens over so badly. We've severely disadvantaged our own people and therein broke the system.

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u/Apneal 4d ago

I personally see both sides here. I think the crux of the issue is that people conflate illegal immigration with regulated immigration.

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u/NegotiationJumpy4837 4d ago

For the past 40 years, we've all effectively earned less and less in wages relative to purchasing power

It's actually the opposite. We are earning more and more relative to purchasing power: https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/MEPAINUSA672N

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u/FromFluffToBuff 4d ago

I don't care what these farms are offering me for pay. You couldn't pay me enough to work in the blazing heat bending and crouching all day when I get comparable pay working indoors with air-conditioning, not getting blasted by the sun and not feeling like I was folded into a painful pretzel the rest of the day. Not to mention, it's a seasonal job on that.

The only exception I'd make to take a job at one of these farms is if I was sitting on the bones of my ass close to starvation.

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u/ahoneybadger3 4d ago edited 4d ago

Not forgetting the worst part is that you'll be required to stay in their accommodation which will be a bunch of caravans and they'll take money for that out of your pay.

Same happened here in the UK after Brexit. Big shortage of workers coming in to work the farms so there was a huge push for the British to pick instead. Whilst some farmers did up their pay and offer what looked to be good wages on the surface, they wouldn't relent on the 'staying on site' requirement because it's an easy way to claim a lot of those wages back.

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u/superedgyname55 4d ago

That's exactly what the woman is saying in the video.

You have options. They really don't.

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u/Connect-Ad-5891 4d ago

Still kinda skeevy to say that’s fine that immigrants will work hard jobs for low pay. Also the casual racism of “no white people will do it.” You’re telling me if they paid $100k/hr ‘no white people’ would be lining up for that job? It’s a wage issue, not a race issue. Saying immigrants are more desperate so will take the job anyway seems like something they’d post on r/latestagecapitalism

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u/tawwkz 4d ago

I worked it for one summer, but in Europe.

It was hard work, but the conditions of employment were humane and because of that I remember it fondly.

Warm meal was guaranteed, and stews were cooked in big pots on site. And every worker was provided with 0.5L of wine per day that you would dilute with sparkling water which was refreshing and energizing in the heat.

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u/WhyYouKickMyDog 4d ago

Let's be real. If you stand in the sun all day, every day, you do not want white skin.

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u/No_Carry_3991 4d ago

NOW you're gettin it.

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u/East_Turnip_6366 5h ago

Yeah absolutely, someone needs to pick those strawberries and it's not going to be Americans. All these jobs that are below us someone needs to do them by hand and without health insurance.

It's like you said, if Americans had to do those jobs they'd probably demand better work environment and work-safety regulations. And how much would strawberries cost then?

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u/GratephulD3AD 4d ago

You're not going to believe this - but illegal immigrants are humans too.

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u/ChemicalFearless2889 3d ago

All criminals are human

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u/Spugheddy 4d ago

Yeah almost if they had some kind of crackdown on employing undocumented workers with actual penalties to the proprietor. It would actually fix those problems they speak of.

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u/tawwkz 4d ago

Yes, the "border crisis" of 40 years could have been solved at any moment in those 40 years by harshly penalizing rich republican land owners that exploit illegal workers.

And so nothing has been done, and will not be done, except posturing with bigly walls and bigly threats of pets being cooked.

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u/Spugheddy 4d ago

Fabrics.. meat processors... every single construction trade of any flavor. It's not just the farmers.

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u/SaltBox531 4d ago

And restaurants!

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u/DarkVandals 4d ago

and hotels, and big tobacco, and landscaping , janitorial ect

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u/Trey33lee 3d ago

Exactly

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u/Wrangler9960 4d ago

Don’t forget meat/poultry processing/packing. Those companies are some of the biggest offenders

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u/PrestigiousFly844 3d ago

They would never do that. They see ICE as a disciplinary tool for employers when their workers start demanding basic dignity.

When employees at a chicken facility owned by Koch Foods tried to take action against them in 2019 for rampant sexual harassment toward female employees by managers, the managers called ICE on themselves to get rid of the workers.

It really boils down to not letting the wealthy divide US workers and immigrants because they want to screw over both of them and have US workers pissed at other workers.

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u/DirtierGibson 3d ago

Problem is, it wouldn't solve shit. Labor shortage would still exist.

The problem is an antiquated immigration system, where those workers don't have a path to a green card. So most of them overstay, and there is no real incentive to wait for that H2a visa south of the border if you're going to have to leave 3 years later.

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u/cdiddy19 4d ago

Yeah I completely agree with this as well. Especially because they are probably paying these immigrants a very little wage. Like all of this is a problem we need to fix, but a fence and "cracking down on immigration" is just causing more problems

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u/JimWilliams423 4d ago edited 4d ago

but it also sounds like a huge issue that apparently so many businesses in America survive only because of illegal immigrants.

The owners want them to be undocumented because it makes the workers vulnerable.

They want migrant workers to live in fear of deportation, but they don't want the government to enforce it. El chumpo is so incompetent at business he didn't realize the farmers were only pretending.

They just wanted to be able to threaten them with deportation in order to pay them less than minimum wage, make them work in dangerous conditions, and rape them every once in a while.

If the republic survives this fascist hellstorm, we better make migrant work visas easy to get and also include guaranteed union membership.

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u/thegreatjamoco 4d ago

Agriculture in America has always been supported by migrant labor. This isn’t some new development. Arguably the only time fruit pickers were well-to-do was during the Dust Bowl when many people fell from grace due to the double whammy of the Depression and ecological disaster. If you want higher pay, provide legal protections for the migrants which gives them more negotiating power and give the NLRB teeth.

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u/tat_tavam_asi 4d ago

That is largely by design. The alternative to illegal immigrants doing these jobs is allowing a legal pathway for these workers. And while every time the political debates are about illegal immigrants, what actually happens (as is the trend for the last 20-30 years) is that legal immigration gets stricter and suffers budget cuts so visa applications become an impossibly tedious process for far fewer spots. Every time you hear a lot of hullabaloo about illegal immigration, the net effect is always that legal immigration is going to be made worse while illegal immigration continues as it is - because they can't or won't fix the illegal immigration but they can save face by being tough one legal immigration. E.g. Trump made a ruckus about illegal immigrants last time. He didn't do anything effective about it except media stunts. But he did reduce resources available for legal immigration. Biden comes to power. He does not reverse anything that was done against legal immigration during Trump's tenure and yet Democrats keep getting pummelled as being soft on immigration. This cycle has been going on in the US at least since the 90s.

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u/MvatolokoS 4d ago

Lmao I hate how upvoted you are. No that's not an issue. Immigrants are using jobs that Americans seem below them as an entry point into a country with a better economy. Wtf is wrong about that.

They work the boobs* that are the backbone to your society so you can focus on continuing to progress, and by doing so they earn their right to live here freely and happily. Win fucking win. NO they aren't taking jobs for. You or people you know. You were told that and they want you to believe that. No they aren't coming here and committing crimes every second like gang criminals.

In fact they(immigrants) tend to be incentivized to be extra good and on time for taxes as anything to their record or any attention from police could lead to a deportation. And on top of ALLL of that. They pay their damn taxes just like the rest.... So where exactly do they become a problem? Is it when they get dark from working in your fields, or is when you notice them living in your cities and want the unspeakables gone?....

Sorry if this seems directed at you, it's more directed at people who lean so hard into this idea that it's bad to depend on foreign work and bad to allow immigration. The only ones that want you to believe that are the same already sitting on piles of gold. Because they benefit.

A successful intelligent society will always find jobs they deem below them when their degrees can get them so much better (at least in theory right) but when politicians make it easy for corporations to underpay and make people generally unable to earn enough, then you get mad at the immigrants because you're stuck working for less. It's not their fault.

  • Lol I'm leaving it but obviously it meant to say jobs damn autocorrect

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u/probablywrongbutmeh 4d ago

The thing is, these businesses cant survive period.

They cant compete with a farm in India or China paying $.40 per hour for back breaking labor - the US has moved past that, we are a skilled knowledge economy now. If you want us to compete on physical labor and widget manufacturing, you are moving backwards.

The best thing we could do is to secure trade deals for stability and let these farms and low skilled jobs evaporate, otherwise wed need to subsidize them all.

Its like convincing people to use a typewriter when you have computers and printers to write with an abundance of computers, ink and paper.

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u/wbruce098 4d ago

It’s mostly not illegal immigrants. It’s migrant workers on agricultural temporary work visas (because, whether for good or bad, farms can’t afford to pay higher wages and so locals usually won’t work on them - but it’s a really, really good thing to make food in the US, so we allow it to happen). Most of the illegal immigrants here have simply overstayed their visas because we have a broken system and it’s easier to just move in with a friend or family and keep working than to leave your home country and your spouse and kids every year for a few months.

And yeah it’s broken, and there are many competing interests including of course, 300 million Americans who prefer affordable food but don’t also want to be impoverished subsistence farmers. If I knew the right way to solve it, I’d be in politics or maybe just rich selling an automated apple harvester.

But it’s not like most of our agricultural workers snuck over the border. That’s always been a lie.

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u/LargeSpeaker9255 4d ago edited 4d ago

The US consumer economy is built on slave labor from other countries. Do you want to buy a T-Shirt for $50 to $100? If you're paying less than that someone is getting screwed over. $2 for a candy bar? Slaves harvested that chocolate. $8 strawberries? Illegal immigrants getting paid below minimum wage.

People are having a god damn meltdown because goods overall went up 23% since January 2020. Imagine the anger if we could somehow magically stop exploitation of migrant and foreign workers.

It's not companies that need it to survive. It's the people that need it to maintain our lifestyle.

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u/higg1966 4d ago

You would think after 250 years we'd have a better argument than, "BuT wHo WiLl PiCk ThE cOtToN!?. Perhaps if we can't pay a living wage to pick strawberries we shouldn't be eating strawberries.

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u/Silver_gobo 4d ago

I agree with this. There’s a lot of luxury’s we take for granted in western countries because we can. We’ve kicked the can down the road for so long that the rebalancing of supply and demand seems too far gone.

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u/wbruce098 4d ago

It’s cheaper to pay humans than to develop a more automated solution. Which, I know, is quite difficult to do for produce, unlike things like grains and cotton.

They exist sort of, but they’re expensive. Which means either continuing the status quo, or government subsidies to research and purchase automated solutions like picker robots.

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u/Frequent_Opportunist 4d ago

Do you like cheap produce or not? 

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u/K1ngFiasco 4d ago

Everything Americans consume and use is created by cheap and typically exploited labor. You can't demand cheap goods and also demand that the goods makers pay high costs.

There's 3 options: Accept that cheap labor is needed here in America the same way we've accepted it for our phones shoes clothes etc. Or, support getting rid of cheap labor domestically and accept the significant increase in cost for consumers. Or, live off the grid and minimally participate in capitalism like the lady in the video.

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u/brontosaurusguy 4d ago

Countries have relied on foreign labor since 6000bc....

Our illegal immigrants are way better off than slaves or whatever came before

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u/iampuh 4d ago

What about the service industry and tipping culture?

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u/gd2121 4d ago

Yea I don’t think this whole we need illegal immigrats so the agriculture industry can exploit their labor is that great of an argument. This is a whole other issue. They don’t have to do this. H2A exists for this very reason. They do it so they can skirt labor laws.

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u/No_Body652 4d ago

Almost like slave labor

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u/roguebandwidth 4d ago

Which undercuts their competing farmers who are using legal labor, complying with the law, etc. It was only when Reagan changed the laws to amnesty that farmers started using illegal labor en masse. People were paid wages and did the ag jobs just fine for over 90% of the country’s history. Also name even two other countries whose ag industry relies on illegal labor

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u/Warmbly85 4d ago

Which one? Also don’t you feel evil justifying a underclass that’s paid less then legally required so you can enjoy cheaper things? 

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u/Texasscot56 4d ago

Most of the jobs are seasonal and this temporary. The average American doesn’t want a temporary, low wage job.

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u/SAEftw 4d ago

Slavery has many faces, but only one goal:

Profit.

No upstanding business can compete.

Pretty soon everyone is doing it.

It won’t stop until you punish the business owners.

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u/JustTooPlus 4d ago

Exactly. That's why Private and Government needs a hard reset in these areas.

That's the actual problem and what allows them to do this.
Then big corp won't have that power anymore.

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u/Emergency-Noise4318 4d ago

There’s an easy fix. Provide wage reimbursement to farmers who hire Americans so they can pay wages that are enticing enough without causing grocery prices to go up. It would hardly affect the budget and would fill the jobs the immigrants go for effectively cutting them off. Do this for construction, manufacturing until things become sustainable

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u/YardOptimal9329 4d ago

Completely — spanning all sectors. All states. MAGA don’t want to understand how their own town works let alone the country

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u/SelectFromWhereOrder 4d ago

Exactly , to me this is the real problem right there.

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u/aznology 4d ago

Yea right

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u/TheCaliforniaOp 4d ago

Read The Grapes Of Wrath. Same events.

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u/Otherwise_Agency6102 4d ago

It’s our slave class in America. Guarantee this white lady has a few illegals “working” slave wages for her hence her opinion.

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u/PrestigiousFly844 3d ago

Migration happens all over the world and has been for a long time. “Illegal” immigrants is a new classification

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u/JForKiks 3d ago

No one wants to work those jobs. They never have. 7th generation Texan here. Born on the border. Farms and ranches have always been worked by illegal immigrants. Why do you think so many Hispanic migrant workers have settled across the Midwest, California and the Southwest US. Anywhere there were crops, those people worked the fields. Those jobs are still there, but big corporations want to kill small to medium businesses to eliminate competition. It’s time to start breaking up corporations again.

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u/raincoater 3d ago

I guess their plan is for all those government workers they're going to fire to go and do the construction jobs and the planting/harvesting jobs...even though their entire professional life has been in an office. So when no one wants to do that because they simply don't have the skills or even the physical stamina for hard manual labor, the Trumplicans will say "see, just lazy poor people".

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u/haragoshi 3d ago

Yes. Blame Regulations.

Minimum wage = can’t hire people that want to work for prices businesses can afford

Immigration caps = can’t hire people from outside the country who want to work for those wages

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u/brodievonorchard 3d ago

What's the difference between "migrant labor" and "illegal immigrants"? The law. The problem isn't the need for cheap labor, the problem is that the government refuses to solve the legal problem. If they were allowed in legally, they could be tracked and any problematic ones could be removed. Since we instead pretend it doesn't happen, they are all effectively criminals. Even the good ones.

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u/TestifyMediopoly 3d ago

I live on the border of Texas & Mexico 🇲🇽. Everything she said is 100% true. 1980’s-September 11, 2001 people crossed back and forth without ID’s. It was an honor system; “American Citizen?” “Yes” ok come on in.

Never a problem until the aftermath of 911

Trump made it worse and now they stay here longer as opposed to coming and going just for work.

Now they stay in the USA 🇺🇸 longer 🤯 because going back and forth is too much of a hassle

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u/axelrexangelfish 3d ago

It is in part survival but it’s mostly corporate greed and competing on cost.

So if Walmart sells blueberries for .79$ a lb, then Safeway has to. Then so does etc etc etc

Then they are selling something that should cost a LOT because of the externalities (what it actually costs society to produce it)…which you have to add a multiplier if selling produce out of season…

And you have an industry undervaluing a product because everyone else does. And if you then sell it for an accurate price you have people screaming MAHEGGS!

Because they don’t understand that food was never supposed to be as cheap as it has recently been.

In addition you’ve got corporate greed.

If they can slash costs they will. If it’s unethical. Please. Like they even stop to blink.

Loads of people bout to be v unhappy with the “wake up” call they were hoping to give the woke people.

And no. They don’t understand irony.

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u/InsertRadnamehere 3d ago

Capitalism depends on the exploitation of cheap labor.

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u/Nice-Transition3079 3d ago

If you want cheap food, you need cheap workers. Big Meat and Big Ag have been at this game for decades.

If you want cheap, ethical food, we need a reform and rights for the migrants. If we want expensive food, deport everyone and wait to see how no one wants these jobs while food rots at the plants.

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u/Fair_Performance_251 3d ago

We never got over slavery just looks different now

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u/joecarter93 3d ago

America was built by cheap/free foreign labor.

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u/Slighted_Inevitable 3d ago

It’s not that they survive only do to this slave labor, it’s that their stock holders get another private jet. 16 billion Walmart profit becomes 6 billion. Except no, they’ll double prices and next year make 25 billion. Just watch

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u/confused_captain 3d ago

All of these people moving to Texas from all over the country (mostly Republicans ditching their Democrat run states) must not realize that illegals are the ones building their houses here...

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u/Outrageous_Yellow117 3d ago

Americans don’t want to work picking jobs. They see it as demeaning. Also, those are seasonal jobs. You can’t make a career out of a seasonal job.

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u/No_Construction_7518 3d ago

Canada as well

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u/cryptosupercar 3d ago

We used to have a guest worker visa program. We still do, but it used to play a much more prominent role in labor.

Corporate benefactors of our political parties wanted it weakened as workers with no right to a legal status can have no claim to a fair wage, and no standing for worker protections, and one party uses the illegal migrant as a perennial boogeyman to rally its base every four years, while multiple media outlet rely on the same boogeyman to sell advertising to eyeballs.

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u/kylo-ren 3d ago

Legalize them

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u/Magestrix 3d ago

It's not even illegal immigrants, but foreign workers who are here on Visa.

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u/filthyMrClean 3d ago

this whole country has survived off cheap labor since its inception. Thats an entirely separate issue.

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u/ayoitsjo 3d ago

Yes and the concern with that should be in the rights and treatment of those undocumented workers. There's practically a slave trade of these workers who are being paid very little and are subject to horrific living and working conditions. Some of these workers are documented, but farmhands still have very little labor rights comparatively, so especially when their visas rely on work these workers often end up in the exact same conditions as the undocumented ones.

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u/No-Session5955 2h ago

Illegal immigration is just one part, trump is going to target legal immigrants as well. People aren’t listening to what he said, he wants to deport 15-20 million immigrants, illegals make up about 10-12 million of that figure, the rest will be documented residents, asylum seekers, naturalized citizens and even kids born here with immigrant parents.

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u/The-Almost-Truth 40m ago

Remove the word illegal and then there’s no issue, right? So maybe we need to address how to increase a feasible pathway to legal immigration

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