reuters.com
www.reuters.com

U.S. farm industry groups want President-elect Donald Trump to spare their sector from his promise of mass deportations, which could upend a food supply chain heavily dependent on immigrants in the United States illegally.

So far Trump officials have not committed to any exemptions, according to interviews with farm and worker groups and Trump’s incoming “border czar” Tom Homan.

Nearly half of the nation’s approximately 2 million farm workers lack legal status, according to the departments of Labor and Agriculture, as well as many dairy and meatpacking workers.

  • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
    2·
    28 days ago

    When you say the workers don’t want it to end, what they really don’t want to end surely is their ability to work and earn money in the country, not their status of illegality and their lack of enforceable rights.

    100% what I wanted to make clear I was saying in my initial comment that I worried was not clear. The “arrangement” I referred to was “consensual farm work”, not “tacitly sanctioned ignoring of labor laws and worker exploitation”.

    Purely for the discussion: I do think the comparison to child labor is off in this case, even though I agree about the point of needing a true viable alternative.
    I would draw the comparison more to a worker in a criminal enterprise than to child mine workers.
    The work they chose is their best choice, but they could have realistically chosen differently.
    Within reason people can choose risky or dangerous things, as long as best doesn’t mean only.