Summary
Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez warned that Trump’s mass deportation policy could lead to labor shortages and higher grocery prices.
Experts say agriculture, construction, and healthcare will be hardest hit, with farm output losses estimated between $30 and $60 billion.
Deportations could cost the U.S. economy up to $88 billion annually.
AOC argued that immigrant labor is vital to economic stability, urging Congress to pursue immigration reform.
does no one else see the ethical quandary of relying on cheap exploited labor for our food?
Sure, but it’s more in the “no ethical consumption under capitalism” kind of way rather than anything specific about the exploitation of the undocumented migrants. Exploitation goes into almost everything around us, and it’s something we have to deal with and work to improve unless we want to completely disconnect from modern society.
Just scanning the room around me, I wonder what the full labor history looks like in the value chain that produced my TV, the phone in my hand, my computer parts, the shirt on my back, AND the food in my kitchen.
If some of the farm labor that went into my food was from an undocumented immigrant that really wants to stay in this country and keep his or her job, I am not happy about the set of circumstances, but I also don’t want to rip that person out of their community and send them somewhere they do not want to go.
We tried to resolve this with legislation and the right wing crazies killed it each time. It’s not like the average Democratic voter wants an undocumented underclass. The business interests do. And the GOP leadership gets to fund raise on the caravans.
Most Americans want a better life for these people. Step one isn’t to spend a trillion dollars to deport them all.
100% this.
I’m not a fan of the hamfisted way Trump and Musk are going about all this.
But at the same time, I look at this and have to wonder the outcome…
If agricultural corporations can’t hire cheap undocumented Latin American people to work the farms, they will have to pay more to hire Americans to do the same job. Yes that will drive up grocery prices, but on some level, if that means more Americans are able to afford those groceries isn’t that sort of maybe a good thing?
Every time I see a company complain of labor shortage, it is obvious to me that the problem isn’t labor the problem is the company doesn’t want to pay what the labor market demands. You tell me you can’t find anybody to hire, so I ask if you offered $100/hr for this job would your inbox be overflowing with applicants? If the answer is yes, then the problem isn’t that you can’t find anybody, it is the supply and demand of the labor market and your only problem is you don’t want to pay the market rate for labor. That’s not the market’s problem.
Don’t worry, we have plenty of prison slave labor available
Absolutely! But at the same time, it highlights the income inequality the majority of Americans are experiencing.
Leadership, yes. I would argue it is intentional. Citizens… well, clearly not some half of the electorate.
for sure. but maybe the losses would be less if they rolled out a 12 month plan to get papers for everyone instead?
who’s losses?