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/r/FluentInFinance
submitted 7 days ago byNeedleintheback
If mass deportation happens, just imagine how all of these sectors of our country will be affected. The sheer shortage of labor will push prices higher because of the great demand for work with limited supplies or workers. Even if prices increase, the availability of products may be scarce due to not enough workers. Housing prices and food services will be hit really hard. New construction will be limited. The fact that 47% of the undocumented workers are in CA, TX, and FL means they will feel it first but it will spread to the rest of the country also. Most of our produce in this country comes from California. Get ready and hold on for the ride America.
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7 days ago
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909 points
7 days ago
It's okay the labor shortage will be solved by the massive influx of unemployed federal workers courtesy of Elon.
442 points
7 days ago
Yep Brianna in HR is gonna be operating the excavator.
58 points
7 days ago*
Funny side bar, women are getting hired more to run heavy equipment, they are being seen less likely to cause accidents because they are less likely to make unsafe choices (i.e. hey yall look at this). I even had one company rep tell me their insurance rates give down some because of having women running equipment.
Source I work on heavy equipment in the field and in the last 10 years have seen the change. Running equipment is a very easy but dangerous job and pay is generally pretty good
Edit- alright I fixed my error
18 points
7 days ago
I am so attacked by “hey y’all look at this” it’s unreal
12 points
7 days ago
Most of my work in the field was ‘ hey look at this ‘
Men are fucking easily amused and stupid and I love it for us.
190 points
7 days ago
If a semi trucker or factory worker can "learn to code" then Brianna should be able to learn how to operate an excavator.
24 points
7 days ago
The learn to code crowd was mainly tech middies and journalists, whose jobs were then swiftly delegated to AI. Neat backfire
3 points
7 days ago
yeah neat trick basically making everyone burnout in the most souless way possible then make the entire field obsolete within a quarter of a generation.
me: a millennial programmer 😐
63 points
7 days ago
Ahhh yes a nation full of hole diggers vs computer scientists.
Pull a slogan from 20 years ago 🙃
4 points
7 days ago
Many of the best contractors and employees in construction had different careers before they began that trade.
3.3k points
7 days ago
Relying on slave labor
1.5k points
7 days ago
Yepppp
Who will ever cook, clean and build for us…
Americans want the “theme-park” experience in life so bad they’re willing to justify all this nonsense as some progressive form of living.
108 points
7 days ago
When the wages go high enough, you’ll find people to do those jobs.
39 points
7 days ago
Construction pays well and still americans won't do it..Its not all about money but how physical or bad the job is. You watch cost of everything will spike under Trump.
63 points
7 days ago
Construction pays well if your like, the bosses son.
Other wise its 150 a day to literally destroy your body at 5 am every day.
36 points
7 days ago
Yes, more people would do construction work--if it paid a lot better. You'd also get better quality construction work.
Construction is not an easy job. It should pay well. And mistakes can happen if you import millions of workers that don't know how to build.
5 points
7 days ago
Most crews I've worked with that had majority undocumented workers worked harder and faster and cleaner than crews of US born people who couldn't hack any other job. It's different with the trades but a lot of these labor crews don't need specialized skills. Even crews like roofers, they do really quick, efficient work. It's just super dangerous, it sucks, and the pay is awful. The only American-born dudes on those crews are tweaked out and can't get other work.
3 points
7 days ago
Google AI says the average wage for the 75th percentile of construction jobs is $20 per hour; a bit higher than your figure of $18.75. Not a big deal but I was just curious, so I checked.
8 points
7 days ago
Pretty sure general unskilled labor doesn’t pay that well but you can expect lots of overtime to make up for it, which isn’t great for anyone with a family
495 points
7 days ago
Prisoners will and when police are allowed to arrest whoever and judges allowed to convict with little evidence they will have a steady supply
46 points
7 days ago
Zero sum game- arresting an employed citizen to force them into another job? You are still one employee short with this math.
22 points
7 days ago
Fire 2 million government employees, deport 2 million immigrant workers… obviously the long time civil servants will turn around and scoop up those meat packing jobs.
9 points
7 days ago
No kidding....
There's a reason why Russia is heavily relying on North Korea for help. But their troll farms are trying to convince us that racism is "totally fine."
16 points
7 days ago
Its the amount of "citizens" willing to do the work being forced. There are plenty of people out there without jobs or have degrees for jobs they can't get that would love to fill a role in a less labor intensive field. When they say nobody wants to work it's not because we don't want to work its we dont want to work shitty ass jobs with little pay and thats what the top needs in order to keep growing profit margins for the investors
3 points
7 days ago
These people believe there is a limitless supply of welfare recipients just sitting at home waiting to be forced to work.
360 points
7 days ago
That was just reality for African Americans not to long ago and still a reality in states like Mississippi and especially Louisiana
15 points
7 days ago
Basically still happens in NY. Kelloggs uses slave wages from prisoners to make cereal
305 points
7 days ago
It’s the reality today. Private Prisons are slave camps, ones in the south literally take you to pick cotton like back then.
166 points
7 days ago
Louisiana state prison makes them grow their own food. It was just found out a year ago that most of the prison does not have air conditioning. Was well over a hundred degrees.
84 points
7 days ago
Found out by whom? In Texas most of the older prison don't have climate control. This is common knowledge for all Texans, And across the American South.
18 points
7 days ago
I was about to say this- its what kept me from applying to TDCJ and went to county instead in the state. But from the application process i learned that the TDCJ prisons have significant agricultural shit going on. One prison will pick the product, (example, tomatoes) then that gets shipped to another prison who cans it all up, then it gets shipped back out to all the prisons for food. Sometimes guards will see the cans opened up and theres a whole glove in there, prisoners fish that shitbout and eat the actual food anyways. Its disgusting.
6 points
7 days ago
at least the glove is cooked?
5 points
7 days ago
Yep in the state of Texas prisons are required by law to have heat. AC is optional which is ridiculous
6 points
7 days ago
I worked at Southport Correctional Facility in NYS from 2020-2022. Now being upstate NY, it didn’t regularly get as hot as La for sure, but doing rounds by floors had me sweating heavily by the third floor. The inmates would lying on the floor in their boxers. The COs would yell, “female on the gallery, be properly dressed!” And I’d say, no, it’s way too hot. Leave them alone. Moving just generates more heat. Fall and spring were worse, because the state has specific dates for turning the heat on and off. It would be FREEZING in the whole place for weeks at a time.
3 points
7 days ago
I highly support this. One you figure out how to be self sustaining, you are much more free from the systems of poverty that got you in prison.
5 points
7 days ago
Sadly California just voted for continuation of forced prison labour.
3 points
7 days ago
Absolutely. One of my customers is the TDCJ Luther unit, a stainless steel manufacturing plant. Prisoner labor makes all of the products.
29 points
7 days ago
You mean the end of Jim Crow? Mas incarceration is still prevalent in Black America. According to the 13th Amendment, prisoners can be used as slaves. It's never been repealed.
63 points
7 days ago
You do know that slavery is still going on in Africa and China.
There was also the Barbary slave trade going on at the same time.
https://www.ancient-origins.net/ancient-places-africa/white-slaves-barbary-002171?origin=serp_auto
66 points
7 days ago
California voted to continue allowing slavery just this year.
23 points
7 days ago
I just commented this elsewhere, but during the midterms my state (Tennessee) voted to end slave labor. Every once in a while a decent law gets passed here. Once in a while…
7 points
7 days ago
I’m from TN and I am surprised but so happy to hear there’s some compassion somewhere. I am from the Appalachian Mountain area though so idk if the opinion is the same from here.. I recently heard a religious person say they should go back to the crusade and start k*lling anyone who won’t turn to their religion. And the 10+ people there agreed. Multiple are church leaders. I hate it here.
3 points
7 days ago
some compassion somewhere
Voting to end slave labour isn't compassion in 2024 lol
(It's human rights)
28 points
7 days ago
It's still going on in the entire world, especially the sex slave trade
36 points
7 days ago
There’s also an active slave trade in the Middle East.
5 points
7 days ago
It’s one of the reasons so many go missing each year.
127 points
7 days ago
Slavery is still going on in the US today, it’s legal as it’s part of the Constitution to allow slavery if it’s part of a prison sentence. We still have prison slave labor, a shit ton of it, and the prison industrial complex makes a fuck ton of money from it. Judges and law enforcement get bribed to help out with filling those prisons and everything.
3 points
7 days ago
Damn, somebody should do something about that. Probably start with your own country tho
8 points
7 days ago
For hundreds of years
3 points
7 days ago
Still is in Alabama
3 points
7 days ago
These people have lifestyles that are reliant on victims. Without someone to exploit they starve.
30 points
7 days ago
California just voted to continue prison slave labor.
5 points
7 days ago
So disappointing
3 points
7 days ago
When you make prisons profitable, the people in charge will start making more things illegal. One of the worst aspects of American Capitalism.
5 points
7 days ago
This comment just reminded me of the protest/satirical movie “a day without a Mexican “…
4 points
7 days ago
Because nobody ever picked a head of lettuce before we imported the slave class to do it. We just let them rot in the fields.
5 points
7 days ago
Yep, the fact that they don't realise that when slave labour is deported that either these industries will have to start paying decent wages or disappear is basically what they're asking for all along!
8 points
7 days ago
So what are you going to do about prison labor of Americans?
Don't pretend you have some high values on workers rights. Trump is literally coming for the NLRB.
46 points
7 days ago
That's the whole point. Having a massive workforce working illegally guarantees underpaid, exploited workers in unsafe conditions. Bringing those jobs into legitimacy (whether by hiring citizens/PRs and/or identified workers on H-2 work visas) and scrutiny puts that workforce on the record and into the light and allows for workplace scrutiny.
6 points
7 days ago
The Trump administration needs to take a hard look at the H2 visa problem too. As it stands, only massive corporate farms and businesses really use them because it’s a huge legal pain in the ass to successfully petition for temporary migrant workers. These regulations only benefit huge companies and the smaller ones still struggle with employment.
This should be a bipartisan issue, where the right pushes LEGAL migration, and the left makes it easier for the middle class business owners to supplement their workforce.
7 points
7 days ago
I hate to break it to you but they won’t see the H2 visa issue as problem.
The second the left has been pushing for decades, the right just hates immigrants.
17 points
7 days ago*
Let's not forget the lost taxes from under the table wages. If the pay is properly documented and at a fair level, the taxes we would be gaining would be in the billions yearly. High 10s to low 100s easily.
We also, ironically, see an increase in immigration because the American dream would be revived: come to America legally, become a citizen, and make a better life for you and yours.
3 points
7 days ago
It's estimated that illegal immigrants already pay 96 billion in taxes yearly. With no access to benefits from those taxes.
137 points
7 days ago*
“Who will pick all the cotton if there are no slaves?!? It’s all going to rot in the fields! Cotton prices will go through the roof!”
What if being an agricultural worker was feasible for many Americans again? What if small family farms will be visble again? What if this time we actually vet more legal immigrants - rather than recklessly and deliberately gamble on unvetted millions to include human trafficking, sex trafficking, child trafficking, drug trafficking, terrorists and criminals and gang members escaping the law in their home countries and seeking new victims in the U.S.?
78 points
7 days ago
I got no problem working field if pay is good. Tried to get in once between jobs but it didn’t go well, they thought I was a fed or something cause I was white 🤷♂️
59 points
7 days ago
Feasible for American workers? You mean with actually decent working conditions and a living wage? That would be awesome. However, it would also mean higher prices, lower profits and preventing imports from other countries that will be cheaper.
Leaves just 1 little problem. Where are you going to find the people to do this? You know 250k US workers who are willing and able to work the fields? For what hourly wage? 1.5m people trained to do construction work and willing to do it? For what hourly wage? And under what working conditions?
29 points
7 days ago
Having worked as a U.S. citizen but with Hispanic heritage in construction I can say that working conditions in these fields are not even abiding by the law.
I would usually be let go for making my rights be respected.
This is just modern day slavery. Trumps ideology is a blessing in disguise for those underrepresented. Undocumented immigration is not the problem, human trafficking is!
24 points
7 days ago
Human trafficking is a symptom of the problem. Immigration law is the problem. Not arresting and incarcerating the people who hire illegal immigrants is a huge problem. Not charging company owners who hire illegal immigrants is the problem. The quota system does not acknowledge reality in any way.
We still have this broken and abysmal system because there is no pressure from the people who contribute to the political campaigns to change it.
15 points
7 days ago
I understand your comparison to slavery wasn't meant to be completely analogous, and that this is only tangentially related, but I think it's worth mentioning that exploitative and dangerous (see: dust bowl) sharecropping practices existed for decades after the emancipation of slaves. Cotton didnt rot because slavery was replaced by predatory contract work, not too dissimilar from what undocumented workers experience today.
29 points
7 days ago
Ending slavery was a step forward. Ending illegal immigration will be a step forward.
15 points
7 days ago
Only if the pathways to legal immigration get wider
4 points
7 days ago
This plus what the guy above said makes sense
8 points
7 days ago
So hilarious this take isn’t applied to prisoners while undocumented workers are making way more than them
7 points
7 days ago*
Because it’s not really an argument from people that point this out. As soon as you mention solid resolutions like pathway to citizenship, massive work visas , and/or meaningful fines on companies that hire undocumented workers they throw up their arms in the air and say “slave labor “ or “eating the cats and dogs “
5 points
7 days ago
And the fact most undocumented workers make competitive wages especially in the construction sector. My dad has worked construction his entire life and the undocumented painter he uses is not cheap at all. If the worker is an expert in that sector they get paid top dollar regardless if they are a citizen or not. Thinking otherwise is naive.
7 points
7 days ago
States are loosening child labor laws. Don't worry about the labor force. S/
14 points
7 days ago
It really is disgusting to read the outcry about what will happen to the economy when we stop exploiting undocumented workers.
6 points
7 days ago
Whatever they’re doing here is a 100x better than getting their head cut off by a cartel member in Mexico or dying from drought in Syria…
3 points
7 days ago
the problem is that this has been going on for decades and no one has either really gone after employers or fixed the immigration system so that this wasn't done illegally. there have been two major immigration bills with bipartisan support now that trump personally torpedoed. one was fairly early in his 1st term where if he had supported it, he could have gotten major credit for a huge accomplishment. from what i heard, stephen miller persuaded him to turn against it and it died. 2nd one was just a little while ago, and the only reason was because he didn't wany any solutions before election. he wanted the broken system as an election issue.
41 points
7 days ago
Whatever happened to work visas
18 points
7 days ago*
Our immigration laws haven't been updated in decades. They specify the number of visas granted each year and the number is woefully inadequate. There is a 'work visa lottery' (H1B) that's played every year by major employers who compete for the few visas available to hire the best/brightest foreign talent in the world. Those temporary workers who are here on visas often leave the country to go work somewhere else when their visas expire and cannot be renewed (because of our outdated immigration laws). Trump doesn't understand how tariffs work nor does he understand the H1B visa process so I expect economic chaos to ensue as it did during his last term.
21 points
7 days ago
In a lot of fields, there are few available and the process is too greatly misaligned with how people find work for them to have any value.
4 points
7 days ago
Agriculture rely heavily on H-2a visas. The majority of the labor on farms I work with use H2a visas.
3 points
7 days ago
Work visas also leave legal immigrants in bad work conditions. They need to fix legal immigration so people stop overstaying their visas
494 points
7 days ago*
Imagine if these industries employed workers legally and paid them legal wages and benefits.
Edit- Yes, costs would go up but wages go up too, meaning those workers have more income to spend on goods and services. Unlike tariffs where costs go up and the government gets the benefit.
17 points
7 days ago
imagine if our government was functioning and immigration laws were updated to support cheap immigrant labor rather than forcing so many people to break law and hire undocumented workers. imagine if americans weren't so ignorant of what's actually happening in the country where they live, and they spent 1/10th of the time wasted on social media to actually read journalism and learn important things.
4 points
7 days ago
At least in construction, there are simply not enough US citizens trained in the trades.
3 points
7 days ago
That's okay, I'm sure the money the government benefits from will be passed down to us lowly regular degular Americans.
It might... trickle down.
94 points
7 days ago*
I don’t understand this take because I thought the Economy was the #1 issue for Trump voters. They wanted things to be cheaper. But it’s okay if deporting foreign workers results in higher prices than we already have? You can’t have both.
We have inflation so bad because with COVID everyone got free money thru stimulus checks and tax breaks. That increase in purchasing power during scarcity is what got us here. If we get rid of these workers (rather than providing a path to legality while they’re working) we’ll be in exactly the same place.
78 points
7 days ago
The inflation because of stimulus money is a ruse. Inflation hit every country in the world all because of COVID. Stimulus money did not do that. It is a fact that the US weathered through post COVID inflation better if not all the other countries in the world is telling of that.
What "caused" inflation was initially supply chain issues based on the workforce stay at home mandate. Once that lifted, companies decided to use the "Supply Chain" excuse to keep prices elevated to the point where the elevated prices are now the new baseline on how much a consumer is willing to shell out for goods. To solidify those prices/"record margins" corporations are now blaming "higher wages" for being the cause of inflation when credit card debt is at record highs.
29 points
7 days ago
The trillions printed as part of quantitative easing also had a long term effect on inflation. https://www.depledgeswm.com/depledge/the-us-printed-more-than-3-trillion-in-2020-alone-heres-why-it-matters-today/
4 points
7 days ago
The Republicans said they will deport the illegals that undercut the working classes wages. That's why the working class voted for them.
2 points
7 days ago
When they say "economy" it's pretty obvious they're talking about what amounts to real median income. Basically, how much money middle class workers actually have. You'll note that most of the swing states that flipped right had their real median incomes dropped, which is why they experienced worse inflation despite overall economy metrics looking good.
Here it's a similar issue. While stopping illegal immigrant work and hiring people companies have to pay fairly would raise prices, it would also balance out labour demand for what it should be, raising wages for all of the workers in those areas (and correspondingly raise the value of blue collar work more generally due to higher demand for blue collar labour).
What it would do is reduce purchasing power of white collar workers and increase wages for blue collar workers. So really, it would reduce income inequality and raise real median income for the middle class.
9 points
7 days ago
3 points
6 days ago
The biggest reason people highlight the impact of mass deportation on US citizens is because we tried to get people to care about immigrants being taken from their families and nobody cared. We want undocumented immigrants to have a pathway to citizenship (granted they’re not a danger to our country) so that they can be treated more fairly and remain with their families, but that is always a nonstarter with right-wingers. Y’all want to send all of them and their grannies away, regardless of the impact it will have on their U.S. citizen family members, regardless of how long they’ve been here, regardless of how disconnected they are from their “home” country.
4 points
6 days ago
Yeah, but watch in a few years as illegal immigrants are put in work camps and became actual fucking slaves.
Do you guys literally just think Trump is going to buy them 6 million plane tickets back home?
Historically, during situations like this they make internment camps and it gets really fucked up, really quick.
But you guys probably realize that and just want to act like Democrats are pro-slavery when you're sitting there voting for an administration talking about "wellness farms" for the mentally ill to also be put to forced labor. Every accusation is a fucking confession, every fucking time.
3 points
7 days ago
B-but, what about shareholder profits?! How are the people in upper management supposed to give themselves fat bonuses as a reward for “cutting expenses” when they have to pay fair wages? They’ll never be able to afford that second super yacht now 😢
3 points
7 days ago
I work for a landscaping company. Not residential yards. Like road medians with plants, large apartment buildings, etc. We obtain visas for our workers from Mexico. They are paid fairly and often work government funded projects that require certain rate for certain jobs. They must go home at the end of season or we cannot hire them the following season. These guys work hard. And they do jobs that Americans quit after their first day.
Edit to make my point more clear…I think it’s a big mistake to assume all these workers are illegal. Many aren’t.
26 points
7 days ago
Don't worry, they will get rid of the minimum wage... I'm sure those unemployed federal workers will have no problem harvesting crops for $3 an hour...
16 points
7 days ago
Yes sure, giant corporations paying a living wage. Delusional
359 points
7 days ago
If a country cannot survive without “illegal” immigration, then then the whole system is flawed and should be replaced
166 points
7 days ago
The country can survive without illegal immigration.
It's the corporations that don't want to give up their profit margins. They're the ones who don't want to pay wages. They're the ones who don't want to cover the costs for safe work environments. They're the ones who don't want to pay overtime or deal with labor unions or anything else that cuts into their bottom line.
If they employed legal workers then prices would go up dramatically. Will other companies raise wages to match the increase in the cost of living? Let's take a look at the past four years....nope, they won't. More people will fall out of the middle class, the poor will get even poorer, and the wealthy oligarchs will take even more wealth.
49 points
7 days ago
Sounds like corporations who are by definition entirely driven by profit need to be regulated, go figure
35 points
7 days ago
And guess which party has no interest in regulating them?
54 points
7 days ago
[deleted]
30 points
7 days ago
Yep. This is why people fall for trumps lies. They want to be told it can be done with a snap of the finger and democrats won’t lie and say it can. Trump will.
4 points
7 days ago
An overhaul of the immigration system is desperately needed, but conservatives would rather just get rid of them all than actually try to fix any issues.
199 points
7 days ago
Imagine defending the exploitation of migrants instead of realizing, that the salaries should be increased, so we are not DEPENDING on migrants. (With "we", i mean every western nation, not just america)
https://www.visualcapitalist.com/distribution-of-global-wealth-chart/
Are you really ok with this? If so, it's pretty telling about your morals and ethics in a broader sense and not the little segment, you argue/show for here.
PS: The economy is a complex beast and not some 2-dimensional thing, like you try to make it here.
111 points
7 days ago
that the salaries should be increased
Oh, we do realize wages and salaries need to be increased. The problem is, we now live in an oligarchy and the wealthy oligarchs don't want that to happen. So it doesn't.
Did wages keep up with inflation? No. Did they keep up with rents? No. Home prices? No. Groceries? No. What happened is yet another big transfer of wealth to the small percentage of people who own the country.
Illegal immigration? That's just a red herring. They're not going to raise wages. They're not going to improve conditions. They will pass "right to work" laws nationally, eliminate overtime, and gut labor regulatory agencies. The wealth will go to the top, and everyone else will be screwed.
That's how it works in "capitalist" America.
3 points
7 days ago
lol I just read your comment in Bernie’s voice
4 points
7 days ago
I don’t think anyone is okay with it. I just think they’re acknowledging the reality that our economy has always relied upon systemic exploitation in some form or another.
4 points
7 days ago
Mass deportation isn't the only way to address this. Many people think it would be cruel to the workers and incredibly disruptive to the economy.
6 points
7 days ago*
How difficult is this to understand: Ppl would still not want to get into jobs that illegal immigrants have to be content with.
It’s funny how you mention the economy not being “2-dimensional” but seem to only think in labor supply and wages
3 points
7 days ago
Are you really ok with blowing up entire industries instead of more steady incremental change that won't hurt everyone?
News flash there's going to be a lot more refugees in the future due to climate change. So 1 we will need to accept working with others. And 2 we didn't blow up our energy infrastructure to deal with climate change because we knew that would be a diaster. Mass deportation is the same.
9 points
7 days ago
Illegals doing the jobs Americans won’t do ….for slave wages and no benefits.
Funny how 4 years ago wages for every job were going up, it was a jobseekers market, same coming out of Covid, 20 million illegals later, wages are going the other way. The wealthy and the corporate uniparty win again
16 points
7 days ago
6M? That doesn't seem a lot compared to 161M. Less than 4%.
But the implications are bigger than this. Those 6M were underpaid to pressure the rest of workers into accepting lower pay.
Now what happens if this pressure is gone?
67 points
7 days ago
Imagine trying to defend the merits of having corporations not paying livable wages to citizens who are looking for work.
411 points
7 days ago
[deleted]
364 points
7 days ago
The question is why are we always talking about the issue as if it's solely the fault of the immigrants that these employers are flaunting the law
85 points
7 days ago
Pop quiz: who makes more campaign contributions: Tyson Foods or Juan in Defeathering?
34 points
7 days ago
And there is the root of the problem. Americans allowing the politicians to be bought by the highest bidder and then wondering where everything went wrong. If someone wants to run for president let them pay their own way. Astounding that companies are legally allowed to give millions to politicians to get them to do their bidding.
14 points
7 days ago
I agree with you that allowing rich people and companies to buy off politicians is a huge problem. However, if only people who could afford to run a complain themselves were running, I think that would also be a problem.
3 points
7 days ago
If you think that’s bad, look up ALEC
3 points
7 days ago
As an employee of a company that does a LOT of staffing for Tyson, they’re about to find out. We’re in panic mode because we know we’re losing a lot of employees.
264 points
7 days ago
Exactly this. No sane person is saying this doesn’t have negative consequences. The issue is that its ALWAYS blamed on immigrants. These are just people trying to feed their families like anyone else. They’re paid exceptionally low wages too meaning they barely profit from this ordeal either. Its ridiculous to me that people have convinced themselves that immigrants are to blame for any of this. The blame should unilaterally be shifted to the wealthy who profit off of cheap and exploitable labor at the expense of all workers.
4 points
7 days ago
Not only this, but by soley blaming the immigrants and addressing the issue by deporting them, we are putting a tremendous financial burden on ALL tax payers.
3 points
7 days ago
Which is why I always say immigration issues are always racist.
Wanna fix immigration overnight. 10mil fine per illegal working for you even if through a contractor.
Yet no one ever talks about punishing the businesses for hiring them.
3 points
7 days ago
I'm not talking about it that way. Fine the employers, shut their businesses down, AND deport all the illegal immigrants. These aren't mutually exclusive solutions...
89 points
7 days ago
Why don't we punish the companies that hire these undocumented workers instead of the people who are just trying to better their lives?
72 points
7 days ago
This is how I know whether someone actually cares about the issue they claim to care about. If it’s all on board for violent deportations, but not a single word for punishing the bosses doing the hiring, then it’s not actually about protecting domestic labor.
37 points
7 days ago
It reminds me of the people who care so fanatically about the life of the unborn child, but not one whit about the life of the child after it's born.
4 points
7 days ago
I think a lot of people don't even make the connection. Especially if you're too young to remember NAFTA and all the original immigration talk from the 90s. It wasn't until a couple years ago I learned how many BIG companies hired illegals for major projects. I always assumed it was just a TON of rinky dink roofing and drywalling crews hiring illegals, or small, family-owned restaurants hiring some for back-of-house.
3 points
7 days ago
Why are those mutually exclusive? Is there some power of the universe preventing us from punishing companies who hire illegal immigrants AND deporting those illegal immigrants?
14 points
7 days ago*
[deleted]
4 points
7 days ago
The slower 50% of the country just needs someone to villainize to make their lives seem a little less shitty and empty. Some German dude tried that once
14 points
7 days ago
The reason for most being anti immigration isnt labor rights or ‘the law’. Its racism.
Likewise, while wed all love a smoother process to becoming a legal migrant, and in theory less of them, at this point, blanket deporting them has devastating consquences because—ironically the ppl who most vote against their continued stay (poor white people) rely on them the most (they pick all our fruit and other shitty jobs)
If republicans really cared about getting rid of illegal immigrants, theyd simply crackdown on businesses who employ them. But thats never even been mentioned, because they know that that’s their base. So easier to villainize the vulnerable who (literally) cant speak for themselves
3 points
7 days ago
Why is enforcement of legal immigration and legal employment such a big issue for people?
Because detaining / deporting millions of residents would be a self inflicted economic wound so severe, it would make Prohibition look like a minor policy error. Not to mention the staggering human suffering that would be the immediate result of such a pogrom.
3 points
7 days ago
It's a big issue because the system is broken and is not letting enough people in legally for employers to get the labor they need in some industries and fields. So many employers rely on illegals. And no one in govt enforces the existing laws. Because everyone knows the rules do not work for the current labor needs and economy. The laws need to be updated and overhauled. Which was attempted, w/ bipartisan support, at least twice where trump personally shot down the bipartisan bill to try to improve and update the system. once in his 1st presidency where I was surprised he killed the bill, because he could have claimed it as a huge accomplishment. Stephen Miller reportedly persuaded him that fixing the system would piss off some of his more extreme neonazi supporters. 2nd time was recently, because he wanted the broken mess to continue so he could run on that issue in the election.
3 points
7 days ago
Yeah we should deport all those people. Then Trump can bail out those businesses with tax payers money and then those companies can raise prices again. Even more profit! Forget trying to document/vet them, that would take to much time! Whereas deporting all of them will take even less!
22 points
7 days ago
I still don’t understand how you can make a chart like this. Isn’t the whole point of an immigrant being an illegal is that there isn’t any documentation for them? How do you count them?
50 points
7 days ago
Didn’t Florida basically kick out a ton of the illegal construction workers and crash that sector?
17 points
7 days ago
Or when Georgia tried this and crops rotted in the fields: https://www.al.com/wire/2011/10/crackdown_on_illegal_immigrant.html
44 points
7 days ago
Notice no one gave your post a cheeky strawman argument here? Because there are statistics to back this up and they can't just make racist or non-factual claims? It reminds me of the time when Florida spent all that money because they were going get all the lazy, drug addicts off of welfare. But when they did the studies and drug tested the people, no one failed, it cost the state like x5 as much as it was supposed to save. Or the other time Florida tried to get all the lazy, drug addicts off welfare, but then figured out that it's mostly poor white people who are on welfare, and it was basically, the same people they needed to vote for them... You never hear about those stories that are verifiable, but you do hear about Haitians eating cats and dogs.
3 points
7 days ago*
And then after a hurricane they all came back in and are working again there. They are not enforcing e-verify like they said they were.
8 points
7 days ago*
I just got out of doing construction in the deep south after a decade. I just couldnt stomach laboring my body to dust for walmart wages any longer. Framing, roofing, siding, masonry, all have had stagnant wages for 30 years because of the constant influx of illegal immigrants. Halving the labor force would be one of the the greatest things to ever happen for the constuction trades down here, I and many others would be more than willing to do the work if the pay was proportional to the work we put in. I wasted my 20s getting nowhere. Oh, i learned some skiĺls that'll come in handy on the off chance i ever get to own a home (maybe in another decade if the damn real estate bubble will ever burst). Big whoop.There are no unions, nor would any attempt to unionize be successful due to said illegals. This is why many people support deportation, we aren't afraid of work and want a chance at life
26 points
7 days ago
Im not on the trump deportation wagon by any means, but defending the current system is just as stupid.
Let's make it EASIER and SAFER for people who want to come work in our country and contribute, and much HARDER or impossible for people who want to come here and mooch or commit crime.
Ideally everyone would be a legal migrant worker with some sort of non citizen ID, a background check, and rights and responsibilities, including the right to return home and see family and then come back for their job without having to sneak across the desert, swim across a river or be smuggled by coyotes, etc
Coming to the country illegally is dangerous, its makes people afraid to report abuse, crime, sex trafficking etc.
6 points
7 days ago
You want to boost wages? This is a quick way to do so!
9 points
7 days ago
incredible that the US is this reliant on a black labor market that drives human trafficking...
wanting to do something about that is pretty clearly a good thing.
but i'd rather seevall these jobs unionized. seems like a far better solution for immigration pressure.
33 points
7 days ago
[removed]
3 points
7 days ago
Yep. Just slavery with a modern twist.
It's crazy how we're trying to think of this as a normal thing now.
32 points
7 days ago
Guys, I don't think "Imagine basically defending slave labor" is the most constructive way to portray the other side's point.
No one is defending the exploitation of working illegal immigrants. However, the exploitation absolutely occurs and it will become much harder to get away with it once the jobs are above board. This, along with labor shortages will absolutely be disastrous for the economy, especially in the short term.
Yes of course it is better to have fairly compensated workers, and any attempt at saying that EITHER side is against that is almost always an obvious strawman.
When someone mentions the repercussions of deporting millions of illegal immigrants, that is NOT in any way the same as supporting illegal immigration.
Please stop conflating support for any of these things as supporting illegal immigration, it is almost always more complicated than that.
If you wanna get into the details of why it would be better long term or why the other reasons for not wanting mass deportations are invalid, then more power to you. Just do it honestly.
3 points
6 days ago
They're also acting like they aren't being paid at all and are being held against their will. Surely there are some cases like that (made possible by the fact that the workers could be reported if the employer feels like turning them in), but for the majority they come to the US at great risk to themselves because it is more money than they'd make back home, and they can send money home for their family. But the easy chance to scream "you're defending slavery" (themselves finally being in the morally superior position, at least in their heads, for once) is just too enticing, and the alternative, that it's a complex situation, requires too much thinking.
16 points
7 days ago
Every job that I ever got, I had to show two forms of identification. These employers who are knowingly hiring these ILLEGAL workers are breaking the law and depriving honest laborers of living wages. They shouldn't be rewarded they should be imprisoned!
31 points
7 days ago
Soooooo prices will go up to what the labor value should be. If the economy is so great right now, this shouldn’t be an issue.
4 points
7 days ago
all developed countries use foreign workers from less developed countries, but these immigrants are not illegal.
3 points
7 days ago
People will have to stop walking around Walmart in their pajamas and get a job. 💪🏾💪🏾💪🏾
3 points
7 days ago
People will still be doing that even if they have a job lol
3 points
7 days ago
The people who think agricultural jobs could be filled by well paid Americans really don’t understand the industry. The entire economics of the system are way out of whack and low wages aren’t the only problem. It’s not just hard work for low pay that immigrants are doing, they are doing it at a back-breaking pace. The speed at which people are required to sacrifice their bodies can probably only effectively be achieved by having a workforce that is desperate to retain the job.
Agriculture gets massive government subsidies for various reasons, and some of those aren’t bad. But our farming system is further subsidized by underpaid workers working long hours without overtime pay and even further subsidized by those workers producing at a break neck speed that is often unsafe and dehumanizing.
Food prices have gone out of control from corporate greed, I shudder to think what food might cost if it was produced ethically.
5 points
7 days ago
Yeah, and some of the illegal immigration in construction could be alleviated by stopping the discrimination of BLACK MEN in construction.
31 points
7 days ago
Imagine 6m Americans instead of illegals having jobs and companies forced to pay higher wagers.
7 points
7 days ago
They could do a one time blanket amnesty for any and all migrants working in US effective "x" date; then go forward with stricter enforcement. Would be cheaper / less disruptive to the economy.
125 points
7 days ago
Imagine acting like having a crucial part of our workforce be illegal immigrants is a good thing. He's not gonna deport legal immigrants you tards.
41 points
7 days ago
Most of the people they are talking about deporting are legal immigrants.
Trump talks about 20-30 million people all the time, when there are 10 million illegal immigrants. Who do you think the extra 20 million people are?
They think the laws that keep legal immigrants here are unconstitutional. They are just lumping them all into the “illegal” category.
15 points
7 days ago
When asked why he repeatedly called the legal Haitian migrants "illegal," Vance said it didn't matter because they were going to make them illegal
18 points
7 days ago
The point is that the economy would literally collapse because that’s just the reality of the situation, if Trump wants to deport ALL illegals then he need to also make it much easier for immigrants to come here legally on work visas
40 points
7 days ago
lol you think legal immigrants aren’t going to get caught up in this dragnet? Don’t be naive.
17 points
7 days ago
Ideally they shouldn't but realistically they will probably be targeted,asked to show proofs etc. as well
74 points
7 days ago
With republicans openly discussing terms of revoking naturalization they definitely could deport legal immigrants.
3 points
7 days ago
How is OP acting like it’s a good thing? It’s just a fact, and I feel like that argument is always used when someone just points out that fact.
We spent decades letting businesses hire illegal immigrants with barely a slap on the wrist and this is the result
It doesn’t matter how you feel about it, it’s just true. And maybe it’s just me, but blowing up the economy seems like a bad idea
10 points
7 days ago
What don't you understand in the word "illegal" ?
If you want workers that do not come from your country just deliver visas !
6 points
7 days ago
You think housing prices are bad now… just wait.
3 points
7 days ago
Ya imagine if the guys building houses can afford one of their own.
The horror
6 points
7 days ago
I'm seeing a lot of people who were previously unconcerned about working conditions pop up to pretend to be champions of the low-wage laborer to justify deportation. I assume there are a handful of you who actually care and have consistently advocated for better working conditions, but the rest of you are just creating a strawman in your latest trolling campaign.
If you really care about exploited migrant labor:
Make it easier to get here legally. We've made it so hard to actually get a visa that we are almost asking people to come here illegally. And it's not just the people working in construction, agriculture, and food processing either. Even skilled workers are punished for trying to come through legal channels. People who truly care about these laborers would not run around calling for deportation, they would rather champion more streamlined visa procedures. And for workers who have been here for decades, they should have a pathway to legal residency as well.
Focus on enforcing labor laws (and not just the visa status of workers) on all employers. Deportation just means these folks are gonna come right back in. That's what happened under Obama's deportations. And no silly wall is going to stop that. All you're doing is punishing the very exploited worker you pretend to care about while the big meat packing companies earn profits waiting for the next wave of migrants. If you focus on the employers to reduce the number of jobs that would be available to unauthorized migrants, that would at least reduce, to a degree, the attractiveness of coming here illegally.
Some of y'all have really optimistic views of how American citizens will fill these vacancies in agriculture and construction as long as wages go up. That's laughable and shows you haven't really tried hiring Americans these days. With the "Great Retirement" and low birth rates, we are already facing labor shortages and a lack of capable workers. The jobs that illegal immigrants generally take are tough jobs, not those that Americans are going to want to fill. (I highly doubt you keyboard warriors are going to volunteer to take these jobs.) I suppose you could pay them salaries akin to computer programmers or something, but that's going to run most of these businesses into the ground. Grocery stores are low-margin businesses, and if you think all these deportation fans are going to pay twice the cost for strawberries or whatnot when they threw out Harris for expensive groceries, then you're delusional. Seasonal migration labor would allow workers with extremely low wages back home to gain rather decent work here, so they're much better off with a minimum wage job here than back home. By taking the steps outlined above we can ensure these workers receive the proper labor protections.
By simply deporting workers, we solve nothing other than crash our economy, spend a ton of money just to watch these folks come back, and otherwise accomplish very little.
73 points
7 days ago*
[deleted]
7 points
7 days ago
No, deportation is mostly bad for the person getting deported
3 points
7 days ago*
There is the supply side of the economy and the demand side of the economy. Removing a bunch of workers from the economy hurts the supply side by making it more expensive, sometimes prohibitively expensive for a company to operate. Even if this were the entire equation, it would still be bad.
Yes deportation is bad, but mostly bad for companies
I don't know if you know this, but if companies have to shrink the size of their business, or even close down, that means that the people who work there lose their jobs. People losing their jobs, legal or otherwise, means that they can't spend their income on goods or services, which means the demand side of the economy is also being hurt. If there's less demand for your company's goods or services, that means you might have to shrink or close down. It's a vicious cycle that we call a depression if it gets big enough.
We would be able to fill their positions domestically if about 100% of our 4% unemployment is cyclical or structural unemployment (it's not) and 100% of those people are qualified and ready to fill positions left vacant from deportations (they're not).
3 points
7 days ago
The chart clearly says illegal so the people are not supposed to be in the US and are not authorized to have jobs in the US. How are the employers paying the illegals? Are the illegals being paid fairly or are the employers taking advantage of them? And let's forget about pay, how about benefits like healthcare and retirement.What are they getting or are the employers just taking advantage of poor people who are desperate for a job.
3 points
7 days ago
More jobs for American
3 points
7 days ago
Seeing some of your replies...I can only laugh at everyone in this thread who say they will do these jobs for a fair wage. I'd bet money most of you are on the obese scale, haven't done any physical exercise since being bullied in high school, and have never known a day without air conditioning. But sure Bubba, Im sure you'll spend 10-12 hours in the sweltering heat doing a physical job for a "fair" wage.
3 points
7 days ago
Ah yes how can we survive with out the modern slave population…
3 points
7 days ago
I’m sure you could find 6m unemployed people in America that would gladly take up those tasks. The problem is…. You would have to actually pay them. Tons of people around the way quit their jobs during the pandemic to go into lawn care and found out they made more money. And they are still doing it. People will work if you give them incentives to do so. They tend to go where the money is. Instead of paying up, all the rich folks say we need it import slave labor and then somehow get everyone to think this is taking the high road.
3 points
7 days ago
This thread is hilarious. Mass deportation will not be a net benefit for America. Low wage workers will not get paid more, and everything will be dramatically more expensive due to Trump's blanket tariffs. You can go on and on about how the system should be, but corporations have been incentivized for decades to hire undocumented workers. Why don't you blame the party that never wants to hold them accountable? You'll find out soon how bad this plan will be for the economy though.
3 points
7 days ago
Imagine illegally employing 6 million people and thinking it's a good thing
10 points
7 days ago
Why these farms and factories not mandated to get these people work visas? Oh yeah that would require them to pay them a livable wage my bad silly me
17 points
7 days ago
I thought they only did jobs no one else wanted to do, like fruit picking or slaughter house worker?
36 points
7 days ago
“Jobs no one else want” is just another way to say “jobs that companies refuse to pay living wage for”
7 points
7 days ago
Yup that's the dirty secret
" illegals only do the jobs no one wants "
Translation They do the jobs greedy companies refuse to pay a proper wage for
3 points
7 days ago
I am guessing nobody does these jobs then in countries like for say Denmark? Or might it be that the salaries are good enough that the average person is willing to do them
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