politics

Here's the big problem. The elephant in the room that nobody is willing to talk about. The elephant that is and will forever prevent the issue from ever being solved.

Farmers aren't worried about the lack of immigrants willing to pick the crops. They're worried about the lack of immigrants willing to pick the crops at a wage that they are willing to pay. Very important distinction between the two. And that wage is often far below minimum with no benefits or employee protections. They could start hiring people at fair market wages, allow them to establish unions, and receive benefits. But that labor cost would be far, far higher than they're paying now, and would likely lead to a sharp rise in food prices that the general public would likely not be willing to accept. Farmers have to consistently dodge the question of why not just hire US citizens and legal immigrants because they can't answer them without admitting that they pay sub-minimum wages in violation of numerous laws and that paying regular citizens competitive wages would lead to huge spikes in food prices. This is because the vast majority of the public does not understand that the low food prices they're accustomed to is because the farm industry has been exploiting immigrant labor for decades if not centuries, and have never had to learn what food would cost if workers were paid competitive wages and benefits. So the idea that competitive wages would lead to higher food prices is literally a foreign concept to a lot of people, because they've never had to deal with it.

Which is where we end up in a catch-22. Actually, several catch-22s.

Someone has to pick the crops. Pick one. Do you want undocumented immigrants doing it under the table with sub-minimum wages, no benefits, and no protections? Or do you want legal immigrants and US citizens doing the work with full pay, benefits, and protections but significantly higher food prices? If there were a way we could get the best of both worlds, farmers would be doing it already.

And Trump himself also has a problem. By trying to find a "solution" to this, he's essentially admitting that the only way to keep food prices low is to employ (and allow farmers to exploit) the very undocumented immigrants he is trying to deport. He's essentially admitting that our entire agricultural industry is dependent on the US essentially willfully turning a blind eye and ignoring its own immigration, discrimination, and employment laws. He's tacitly admitting that enforcement of his own policies would lead to a spike in food prices that even he acknowledges would be unsustainable, either due to higher labor costs, lost crops, or both. He basically has to come off as looking ultra-tough on immigration while being forced to acknowledge the need of the very people he's trying to deport. This isn't exclusive to Trump. Any president would face the same dilemmas. It's why previous Presidents have largely avoided the entire subject like the plague outside of giving some political talking points that they never actually act on.

We, as a country, need to start to fully understand and decide what we want. Do we want the employment practices of the agricultural industry to be above board, even if it leads to significantly higher food prices? Or do we acknowledge that our agricultural industry is entirely reliant on a supply of immigrant labor willing to work at sub-minimum wages and that maybe getting rid of all the brown people isn't such a good idea after all. Because if that's the case, we need to adjust our immigration laws and employment guidelines accordingly. Maybe we need a special class of immigrants who get a work permit only to work on these farms, and their visas become revoked if they become unemployed. Maybe a path to citizenship where if they come and work on the farms for X years at sub-minimum wages, they become eligible for a permanent visa where they can work anywhere?

I don't know the solution. But I do know that as long as both sides keep tiptoeing around the reality of the situation, the problems will never get solved.