Summary

President-elect Donald Trump’s proposed mass deportation plan could severely impact California’s agriculture, where many of the farm workers are undocumented immigrants.

Experts warn that deporting these workers could disrupt the U.S. food supply chain, drive up prices, and increase reliance on imports.

California’s $24.7 billion agricultural industry heavily depends on immigrant labor for producing key crops like almonds, strawberries, and lettuce.

Farm worker advocates argue Trump’s immigration policies aim to discourage labor organizing by creating a more vulnerable workforce. California leaders, including Governor Gavin Newsom, are taking steps to safeguard immigrant rights amid growing concerns.

  • @[email protected]
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    2312 days ago

    That was my first thought when they talked about “mass deportations of illegals”. Many areas of the American economy simply rely on cheap labour extracted from those refugees. They work on farms, in production, on construction sites, in logistics, and many other jobs Americans would not touch with a ten foot pole. Having to pay for food harvested only by vetted American Citizens will be a harsh lesson for all those idiots who voted Trump into office because they thought he would make food magically cheaper.

  • @[email protected]
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    512 days ago

    If the farms are hiring people illegally to keep prices low then maybe it’s good for that to come to an end. It sucks things will cost more but not paying a living wage and taking advantage of immigrants isn’t ok.

    Deporting people is also not what I want though so idk

    • @[email protected]
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      112 days ago

      Alabama tried this already and no one would come do the work, so it’s not going to have people flocking to pick up these jobs.

      • @[email protected]
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        311 days ago

        Maybe if they increased the wages or improved the working conditions, people would come do the work after all?

        Just spitballing, here….

        • @[email protected]
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          111 days ago

          They did, people do not want to work outside doing hard labor for what it should cost. The cost for your food is relatively cheap, because of cheap labor. This idea that farmers are rolling in money is a nice myth, but it’s not true, the majority are living year to year trying to survive.

    • NoneOfUrBusiness
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      412 days ago

      These people should indeed be paid a livable wage, but that’s only half the problem. If they’re gone nobody will take their place. This is backbreaking work that your average American for good reason simply won’t be willing to do.

      • @[email protected]
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        311 days ago

        Installing HVAC ducts in blistering hot attics is backbreaking work but people can be found to do that.

        I wonder what those people get paid, and whether they have access to bathroom breaks, clean drinking water on the job, and a decent place to sleep at night?

  • @[email protected]
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    2612 days ago

    That’s the whole point right? This isn’t about right or wrong. This is about disrupting and fucking up the economy as much as possible.

  • @[email protected]M
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    712 days ago

    It’s super depressing that in this post-empathy economy we care more about the crops than the people who pick them.

  • Pistcow
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    312 days ago

    Good. Fuck the idiot racists that voted against their own interests.

      • @[email protected]
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        111 days ago

        California is suprisingly conservative outside of the cities. If you look at any election map, its usually red towards the farms and rural areas. It’s just there’s so many people in cities that it doesnt really matter on state level

  • @[email protected]
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    4212 days ago

    If only there was some recent example of a western country doing something stupid like this that isolates its self from a major chunk of its agricultural workforce, and really screwing over its fresh food supply… (Politely clears throat in post-brexit British)

  • @[email protected]
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    311 days ago

    Instead of deporting illegals, why not make getting a citizenship eaiser? Or hell, a work visa??

  • @[email protected]
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    12 days ago

    So those farmers admit breaking the laws constantly, in an organised way and on large scale?

    They are a mafia, aren’t they?

  • @[email protected]
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    12 days ago

    And you thought grocery prices were high now.

    I’m not sure how Trump benefits from this. Sure it causes chaos in the short term, but what’s his actual goal here? Just to trade favors with Russia to keep himself out of prison?

    • @[email protected]
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      12 days ago

      The thing is he could do nothing, and then tell his supporters, “I did it! I deported all the bad guys!” And they would cheer and say, “Wow everything is better now. We love Trump.”

      When you’ve convinced the people of a fake problem you can just give them a fake solution. “I scared away the monster under your bed.”

      • @[email protected]
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        1612 days ago

        Unfortunately both the voter and the politician are lying, they aren’t trying to solve a problem, they want actual ethnic clensing. They don’t want to see brown kids of any status legal or otherwise around schools. All there efforts are trying to kill non whites faster and increase white birth rates, while ethnicity clensing non whites. If you aren’t aware of this, welcome to the thing the USA has been doing since 1776.

        • @[email protected]
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          12 days ago

          The first time they had grifters, this time they have ideologues. I’m morbidly curious how this will pan out, that sort uses violence to impose a reality that doesn’t exist. It’s an inherently unstable rejection of material existence. And if Trump dies, no one else around him can ride that buck under him, they do not have the charisma; they’re creepy fucking weirdos. He got less votes this time, and several right wingers have already attempted to kill him, so his hold isn’t as steady to begin with. My inner optimist is wondering if they may learn to regret what they bought.

          https://www.bostonreview.net/articles/the-eighteenth-brumaire-of-donald-j-trump/

          • @[email protected]
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            612 days ago

            I cringe every time someone describes Trump as charismatic. I know what you mean and I don’t disagree with the sentiment, but the fact that there are people in this world who find his demeanor appealing will never be anything but horrific to me.

            • @[email protected]
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              111 days ago

              Most folks are extremely boring, I suspect the only reason I find him so acharismatic is cause I am autistic and can barely stand most people let alone a used car salesman. Actually ive met plenty of interesting used car salesmen, one of them actually restored and sold off old military vehicles he either bought from random folks or via auction.

      • Voytrekk
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        112 days ago

        I think this is the most likely solution. He knows that removing immigrants is bad for the economy, he just needs his racist supporters to believe that he is kicking them out.

    • @[email protected]
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      611 days ago

      He just wanted to avoid jail, that’s how he benefits. He just wants to golf and not go to jail

    • @[email protected]
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      1012 days ago

      The deportation thing? It benefits corporate interests by giving them another excuse to raise prices by more than than their actual costs.

      They loved the cover COVID gave to raise prices and increase profits.

        • shuzuko
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          112 days ago

          See, they’re still just barely scared enough of the populace that they feel the need for a cover story. They worry that if they just exorbitantly raise prices without a “valid enough” reason, the working class will actually turn against them. But enough of the working class still has some faith in capitalism for them to believe the corpos when they throw up their hands performatively and say “there’s nothing we can do! It’s the market forces!”, so they keep the cover story to placate the masses and prevent us from doing too much research on how to build guillotines.

          Don’t worry, we’re only a few years away from the point at which they stop caring about the facade!

    • Chozo
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      1112 days ago

      what’s his actual goal here?

      To cause enough instability in all aspects of society that it affects everybody. Once everybody is in the same position, it’s easier to convince them all of what (or who) to blame, and people’s desperation will allow them to justify whatever atrocities are “necessary” to remedy their problems. Right now, it’s “You’re poor because of immigrants”. Tomorrow, it’ll be “You’re in danger because of trans people”. Soon, “You’re being surveilled because of dissenters”, “You’re unhappy because of women”, etc.

      When they control the problems, they control the solutions. Disrupting the food chain is the fastest, most immediate way to grab society by the throat; we’ll do anything before we go on a diet.

  • Justin
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    12 days ago

    I understand why Democrats are falling back on arguments like this in the face of open facism, but it’s fitting that this week is the the 86th anniversary of the kristallnacht pogrom. Somebody tell Hitler and Goebbels not to dehumanize and attack all those jews, because it would be, like, totally bad for the economy or something.

    The point of Trump’s rhetoric against immigrants is to dehumanize them and scapegoat them for all of the US’s problems. We do the same here in Sweden, when our politicans say we’re being “naiive”, and we call immigrants disloyal to Sweden, welfare frausters, and terrorists. We accuse their culture of being anti-democratic, sexist, and promoting child abuse. We scapegoat them for our crime issues, antisemitism issues, and impoverished neighborhoods.

    Just the first step in dehumanizing an entire 1M+ group of people.

    • @[email protected]
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      611 days ago

      This isn’t “falling back,” anyone who knows how agriculture works in the southwest US has been saying this for years. We have an absurdly huge military, we could secure our southern border at any time. But it’s a fucking stupid idea in terms of cheap labor and relations with Mexico, and it would also mean republicans can’t cry about the border anytime democrats are doing well in DC.

    • @[email protected]
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      411 days ago

      The reason the economic argument is the most prominent is because the economy was also the number one reason people voted for Herr Apfelsine.

  • @[email protected]
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    11 days ago

    Honestly I hope it happens.

    Americans need to learn the very, very hard way that choices matter and you really need to pay attention before you cast your vote.

    • @[email protected]
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      1711 days ago

      I have never been an accelerationist but have a feeling it may be our only path forward from here on.

      Note- not a plan, will see how things go. Not terribly hopefully atm though.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 days ago

        Yeah, but the choice has already been made, sadly. It would be worse for conservatives to make the choice and be somehow rewarded.

    • @[email protected]
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      210 days ago

      “It’s the liberal Democrat policies in California that have cause the woke food shortage.” -Donald Trump after mass deportations “Makes sense.” -average American voter.

  • queermunist she/her
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    12 days ago

    The mass deportations will require internment camps to hold people until their trial is processed.

    And what do you think will be done with the people in those camps? They’ll put them to work! Except even cheaper than the starvation wages they were getting before, because it’ll be pennies on the dollar like our other slave workforce of prisoners.

    Welcome to America. Work sets you free.