Donald Trump said on Friday that farmers may be able to keep employing undocumented migrant workers without fearing enforcement raids under a system in which they would take “responsibility” for them.
Undocumented immigrants make up 4.6% of the U.S. workforce— more than 7 million people. Many of them work in agriculture, hospitality and construction, The Guardian reports.
Shay Myers, who runs Parma, one of the country’s largest onion farms, warned that “we will not feed our people without these workers,” considering that the Department of Agriculture estimates that over 40% of industry workers are undocumented.
“Employ”
So he’s thinking about a soft sell on “Slavery Lite” then. Do you guys remember the days when a president could do something like this and it would IMMEDIATELY mean the absolute end of their political career? I miss that. I miss that so much.
President Donald Trump said on Friday that farmers may be able to keep employing undocumented migrant workers without fearing enforcement raids under a system in which they would take “responsibility” for them.
It was not immediately clear how the system would work, and is the latest of several changes of tune regarding the matter.
IE, Trump has concepts of a plan.
Not anywhere near as concrete as the headline suggests.
Trump suggested last week that migrants working in industries like farming would be exempted from enforcement raids given the disproportionate impact that enforcement operations could have in the economy and the industry.
After the statement, ICE officials reportedly told staff in an internal email to largely lay off raids and arrests in the agricultural, hotel and restaurant industries. However, the pause did not last long. By Sunday, Trump had publicly reversed his previously proposed policy entirely, ordering agents via a Truth Social post to deliver what he called the “single largest Mass Deportation Program in History”— focusing particularly on America’s largest cities, almost all being run by Democrats.
In other words, Trump himself has mutually inconsistent, diametrically opposed ‘policy’ goals, and is too demented/senile, fundamentally stupid, and tempermental, to actually formulate a coherent ‘policy’.
This is all contradictory nonsense, and Trump’s subordinates are basically just interpreting whatever vague nonsense Trump is saying in whatever way they want.
It is the same as his tariff bullshit.
Tariffs are good because they’ll bring in revenue and balance the defecit!
Oh wait, they’re crashing the economy? Hah, idiot, that was a negotiating tactic, now we’ll negotiate!
Oh wait, negotiations failed? Hah, idiot, that was a bluff, what will actually happen is tariffs will make domestic manufacturing boom!
Wait what? Domestic manufacturing relies on either final assembly of imported goods, or just rebadging/relabeling and reselling imported goods… or actually paying for and building new factories first?
Uh, uh, uh, uh… Bomb Iran!
…
All Trump knows how to do is scam and grift people by saying what he thinks they want to hear, and also self-aggrandizing.
Now he is absurdly out of his depth, and is floundering and flipflopping like a fish out of water.
The reality is that federal agents of the regime will do whatever the fuck they want, justify it however the fuck they want, and threaten to arrest or shoot whoever the fuck they want.
Oh… So… Slavery, then? But, you know, without calling slavery outright.
Lets see how long it will take some red neck farmers to abuse the system and threaten their workers with “work more or I will get you deported” kind of threats.
That’s always been the system. That’s how they keep the wages so low.
That’s been reported already. Already happened.
well I guess that will now start happening to legal immigrants as well since being a legal immigrant does not stop ICE from kidnapping you apparently
Sort of always been that way. Most of our immigrant purges have been.
It’s really hard to tell someone’s legal status just from looking at them, but most people can identify a race on sight alone.
That’s already been happening for a hundred years.
Ignoring all the other obvious issues… How would this even work if these gestapo fuckers are rounding people up at Home Depot and court houses and routine traffic stops? These farms will just continue to bleed legal and undocumented migrants, regardless of whether they’re directly raiding a farm.
Slavery. It’s called slavery.
Heinous country. Imagine being such a horrible place that you mistreat the ones that feed you.
I’m all for shitting on my shit country, but mistreating farmers is pretty common globally
I’m talking about these “farmers” mistreating their workers, exploiting undocumented immigrants, and so on.
So slaves?
Yeah, not surprised at the Orange Blunder finding a way to bring back slavery. Oh his cronies will think up a different name for it, but soon these poor people will be segregated and counted as ⅗ of a person for purposes of population counting when drawing up political districts.
At this rate we are going to end up with Civil War 2 Electric Boogaloo before Christmas…
Edit: Correction of fractions, the historical amount was ⅗, not ⅕.
3/5 was a compromise… Orange will round down to the nearest whole number
1/5th? Worse than slaves.
Your right, I double checked the number and I misremembered, it should be ⅗ not ⅕.
Okay, so what the fuck do these numbers mean? I seriously dont know and I Am kinda afraid of what they might mean.
I want to berate you if you were raised in the US and don’t know.
That said if you are younger than me in some states it’s been deemed un important over the last 20 years
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Connecticut_Compromise
This is referred to as “The Great Compromise”
Slave holding states wanted slaves to count for the census and free states saw that as un fair. So slaves got to count as 3/5ths of a person and everybody won! /s
I Am not from the US, but still thanks for the info. This is like the prime example to why “centrism” is actually just defending the status quo.
They’re illegal they aren’t counted now. Why would they start counting them?
Um Ackshually, the Census is supposed to enumerate all persons living in the US, regardless of citizenship status, and that enumeration is supposed to be directly used by the Federal Government to apportion Congressional seats. So they are already counted, or at least they’re supposed to be.
The first Trump Administration was in charge of the last census, and tried to get a question added asking directly about citizenship status. It got squashed in the courts, because citizenship status is not supposed to matter, and the only effect that would have is to have non-citizens avoiding the census.
The whole point of the 3/5 compromise wasthat enslaved humans were considered to be worth 60% of a non-enslaved human for census purposes.
That’s just slavery with extra steps.
Ahh, yes.
I think the U.S. used to have a system where the farmers assumed responsibility for people who weren’t citizens but worked for them.
What was that called again?
What was that called again?
sTaTeS riGhTs!
3/5ths
that was for actual citizens
that was for
actual citizenspropertyFixed it for you.
Oh, so like visa sponsorship? The thing that already exists?
No, you don’t understand. This will have the Trump name, so it’s different.
-Idiots
It will be worse, because in the very vague details as this is being discussed, this will formally tie them to an employer, so they won’t be able to seek employment that doesn’t hire “illegals”, and basically lets employers deport people.
A visa is a contract between the immigrant and the state, with the employer acting as a third party, not as an intermediary. This is indentured servitude, basically formalising the current system where these people are allowed in as long as they are only used to undercut local wages, but they can’t seek their own happiness and freedom.
If the labor that is necessary for feeding people can’t exist without undocumented workers, then perhaps the system itself is fundamentally broken if there is no easy path to citizenship.
You cannot have it both ways, Trump. Either it’s easy to come here and get papered up and nobody gets deported (and he loses his ultimate scapegoat), or it’s just as hard as it is now and we deport everyone working the fields and starve.
He can have it both ways. He is just going to say the farmers are heros for “taking the risk” and “protecting us all” from the violent cohort that is required to get our food to table now. Immigrants can be the enemy even more than ever, his base gets to eat up a new form of cognitive dissonance like a brain tumor, all will be well this time next year for them.
My official guess for the name of this new slavery program is the “Essential Guest Worker” bill/order.
Why not “Substantial Labour Addition Verification Edict”?
I’ve said it before but before I die I fully expect to see some sort of “Right to Labor” (or something) law where companies can press unemployed people into “employment” for prison wages.
No, brand it the way he likes, call it “Trump Slaves”.
Has a single one of these
plantationfarm owners been arrested for employing the undocumented workers?Nope. They hire these people then call ICE on them when it’s payday. They got the fruits picked and didn’t have to pay a dime.
