As President Trump, Secretary Noem (DHS), Secretary Rollins (Ag), Secretary Burgum (Int) and various administration officials arrive back to Joint Base Andrews from their visit to Iowa last night, the President delivers impromptu remarks to the assembled press pool.
Covering a wide range of topics and questions, President Trump and Ag Secretary Brooke Rollins also explained Trump’s controversial remarks about expanded visas for illegal alien farm workers to get them into compliance. Secretary Rollins states an expedited H2A guestworker visa is currently in the works.
President Trump also notes from his conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, likely focused on Iran, Trump does not think Russia is in a position to want to stop the current conflict with Ukraine and President Trump does not want to get pulled further into the conflict. WATCH:
President Trump also notes that he will begin sending letters to countries today specifying what tariff rates they will face on imports to the United States. The applied reciprocity rates will vary from 10/20 percent to 60/70 percent depending on the scale of the trade deficit and other factors.
Not tired of winning yet!!
MAGA!!
I am not even close to being tired of winning!
POTUS DJT got his mojo working!!!
The overreaction by some this morning about farm workers is so unnecessary. This is what responsible governance looks like.
The current system invites illegal behavior by offering no functional legal alternative. The H-2A program is necessary, but it’s slow and burdensome in a business (farming) that runs on speed and timing. Fixing that first is the rational step.
This approach strengthens the rule of law. It puts a working legal pathway in place first (the expedited H-2A), then clears the way for stricter enforcement on those who still choose to bypass it.
I get tired of people online rushing to their comfort corners, looking for any excuse to cry that Trump is backtracking on immigration. He’s not. He’s fixing the system so the law can actually be enforced.
Thank you for that common sense explanation.
Yep, and there ARE unscrupulous people who don’t WANT “legal.” It’s not everyone, but they are there. And some of the true stories are pretty awful.
I want all immigration stopped, legal and illegal. Enough is enough. We need a 10yr moratorium so the country can catch up with the people already here. Call me heartless all you want. There’s a big mess, and it needs to be cleaned up. I don’t care about the one or 2 legit sob stories. It’s unfortunate but it’s not our problem. They all gotta go.
Demon Slick.. when was the last time someone in your family farmed for living ? probably a couple generations., right? Educate yourself on seasonal farm work Visas… been around for decades…
Then why didn’t these big ag’s do it the right way….I bet it wasn’t for the workers benefit.
There was disparate legal means, so what “right way” are you referring to?
This is what fries me! My son works on a huge farm, six days a week, year long! He’s responsible for anywhere between 300-500 head of cattle, in the NE outside with a wide open barn. Whether it’s-40 windchill or 100 degrees, he’s there working! He’s all by himself and didn’t even have a portajohn for the first 3 years! He doesn’t get paid anymore than his migrant counterparts and his money stays here in the US! Americans will do these jobs! We have homeless people, convicted felons with past drug problems getting a second chance. Why does it have to be someone from another country? It’s a fable to think this way!!!!
Seems like the farm owners are discriminating against American born citizens. If the American citizens don’t take the farm jobs, then the legal migrants can have that job. Like everyone says on the CTH- There are Billions at stake. Seems a little shady.
during the transition period you need to keep companies afloat as you redesign their labor.
steps. take the win!
The vast majority of Americans agree with demonnslick ….
the vast majority of Americans agree with the demon slick. FarMing industry is totally screwed up and needs to be 100% revamped – there is a reason Americans are unhealthiest people in world and that many countries don’t want our Farm products. End ethanol and farming subsidies , dismantle Big Ag, Mass farming is Fraudulemt and evil-
What needs to happen is a common sense reform of all immigration. The Kennedy crap from the 60’s started us down the path that has now come to an end. Why should America accept anybody and everybody randomly? Pick the ones America needs and wants.
I’ve always thought that putting in place a system that incentivizes illegals to become legal makes sense. We would know where they are and who they are and it allows much better management. Prioritize those that use the system wisely. When we identify those that are not welcome, out they go.
Not sure but maybe DS hasn’t looked up lately. Have you seen anybody but Hispanics doing roof work? They work hard all day in the hot sun. Let’s just make sure they have proper status and are paid commensurate for what they do.
“…………..that putting in place a system that incentivizes illegals to become legal makes sense.”
First you must secure your system to incentivize people to NOT become illegal in the first place. That’s where the rule of law comes into place. And, more importantly, enforcement of that law. When illegals are simply allowed a pathway to legal status without punishment for their crime, then there is no incentive to take the legal pathway from the onset.
The methods can be orthogonal, and the President see that.
Absolutely! We were in SW FL and after Hurricane Charley when a new roof was being put on our house, it was August and was such a hot job for the young men the roofer brought in to do the job. In the evenings when they were finished work, they were invited to sit on the edge of the pool and put their feet in for a while. I noticed a couple of their pairs of shoes were so thin the heat from the roof had to have made their feet miserable all day while they were working.
It was mostly americans until the illegals came here in massive numbers. Up north it was just americans until somewhere in the 80’s. And a lot of americans were roofers down south.
Looked up? My white husband is out working in the same conditions! These people aren’t special, they undercut American wages and steal our jobs!
Americans do too! Always being undercut and losing work because of cheap labor and cheap people!
We have had various seasonal ag programs for decades upon decades.
Caesar Chavez was a legal farm laborer in California way back in the ‘50s. I think that the rule was that you lived and worked on the farm, then were sent home till the next picking season. Of course Chavez then became an agitator for the communist unions. How convenient to forget such a minor fact. It seemed that not all of the farm crop pickers were as loyal as Peppino.
its our version of China slave labor to keep up with pricing.
The legislative director of the FL Farm Bureau personally told me that it would always oppose Everify, because FL farmers ONLY want to hire ILLEGALS, and sluff the costs of medical care onto the taxpayers. Nasty, greedy farmers. I’ll only buy produce from a local market with local owners who farm it. Screw the farmers.
Oh please already. Just call it what it is: A sop to whatever Congress vermin (controlled by Big Ag lobbyists whose prime agent, Brooke Rollins, sits in the Cabinet) wouldn’t have voted for the One Big Bertha Butt Beautiful Bill otherwise. Spare us these “Jobs Americans Won’t Do!” and “We’re A Service Economy!” and like buzzphrases from the ’12 run by Milquetoast Mittens Romney and his manicured cuticles. Have the integrity to call the turd the turd, in lieu of polishing it and calling the result political art.
it also helps end the slavery of illegals.
Jump through some hoops gets some minimum wage temporary workers. Try to use slaves go to jail. Need skilled Temporary workers Negotiate fair wages,
The benefit to all workers and national safety and security goes through the roof when we have an enforceable process and user accountability.
By the way big opportunity for someone who wants to handle the paperwork on this and accept accountability for small farmers.
So, I must be very simple. How can Americans not do these jobs?
Seriously, thank you for that question. That is a good and fair question.
The short answer is that the current system suppresses wages and relies on a vulnerable (often illegal) workforce with no bargaining power. As a result, the pay is low, the conditions are tough, and the jobs are unstable and seasonal. Most Americans understandably won’t uproot themselves for temporary work that doesn’t cover the cost of doing it.
But if we put a legal process in place (one that requires compliance, documentation, and real accountability) then the wages will have to rise to a level that makes these jobs competitive again. Legal labor forces market corrections. That’s how you get back to a system where Americans can and do take these jobs, and where no one is being undercut or exploited.
Your next question might be: won’t that raise the cost of these goods? The answer is yes, it will. But that’s the honest cost of doing things the right way. Paying a bit more for goods is better than propping up a broken system with government subsidies for unemployment and social services.
Right now, we offset low food prices by spending more on Medicaid, housing support, and overloaded emergency rooms and jails (all of which absorb the cost of an underground labor economy). And at the same time, we inflate the profit margins of global corporate agriculture by letting them externalize labor costs onto the public. That’s not sustainable. It’s not honest either.
A lawful, structured workforce (with livable wages) reduces dependency, cuts downstream costs, and restores dignity to the entire system. Would you rather pay a dollar more for produce, or keep paying hidden costs through higher taxes, strained hospitals, and overwhelmed local budgets—all while boosting the bottom line of companies that exploit the system? That’s the real tradeoff.
What a great response!👍🏻👍🏻👍🏻
“we inflate the profit margins of global corporate agriculture by letting them externalize labor costs onto the public”
See: Blackrock, State Street, Vanguard and IC. Our thinly veiled clandestine Fascist Oligarchy. Maintaining control with bribery and blackmail through a pre-groomed Congress.
But other than that they’re good folks.
Big Ag and their main lobbyist, Brooke Rollins, loves them some H2A. Smaller and family farms, maybe not so much.
And the per-unit cost of the product at the grocery would actually rise very little.
I’d rather pay $2 more & not bring in foreign slaves.
and $2,000 you pay for their SNAP, housing allowance, etc…
How about the $15,000/month the ones loading into NYC were getting, living large in the Roosevelt Hotel. I wish that bill could have been sent to Biden and his admin. They caused it.
Excellent explanation. I’ve said bits and pieces but this is comprehensive and understandable for those who haven’t followed it in depth.
I’m stealing.
but why cant we be just as smart to tear that comment apart and replace it with a plan to use Americans
are we not high IQ..
can we not change directions of life with will.
Thoughtful, introspective, logical and masterly explained Joe. Kudos! Local roofing Companies around here hire seasonal labor who coverup with hoodies to avoid ICE detection in 95+ degree heat atop asphalt roofs for 10+ hours a day.
America’s wallet is getting bent over as Companies profit via lobbying our Government.
You look smart. I bet you could come up with a way to get the farming done without illegals (even if it includes cost increase)
Prison labor thats a wild guess. if you want to go to the extreme.
Good idea! Now let’s hire rapists and murderers to do work in your neighborhood.
That’s what you are asking of the rural communities.
“Good idea! Now let’s hire rapists and murderers to do work in your neighborhood.”
As in the one who murdered Mollie Tibbetts in Iowa? From what prison was he on work-release? Oh, wait; he was up here from Mexico. Bad example.
There are other people, that are in jail/prison for various reasons besides rape or murder. A pastor and his wife bought a house near our local school in our rural neighborhood. It’s for housing 3 parolees with prior drug convictions. No one likes it, not even me. There are no jobs in this area and my grandkids go to that school. I guess they deserve a second chance, so why not replace three migrant farm workers with these 3 citizens? At least we know where they came from and what history they have.
Well said
When food prices go up it opens opportunities for local growers. You will see more smaller farms that can make a living and compete with big ag. You will also see a lot more people growing their own because it pays to do it. This has a ripple effect of better food and better health. But all of this takes time. It needs to happen in controlled way that does not cause too much disruption to food prices and supply.
Well said. There is also some pride involved with work that some Americans don’t have. They may decide collecting from Gubmint is a better choice whereas some cultures still see hard work as something you just do.
Like those of us who were brought up in the 50’s and 60’s? I had a family situation where I spent my high school years at The School of the Ozarks near Branson, leaving home at age 13 and living in a dormitory. I had to work 40 hours a week during the summer and 20 hours a week during school and I didn’t miss a thing. I learned early the benefit of work.
I live part of the year in Mexico. The problem there is that there’s not enough decent-paying work for everyone there, so they come here.
They DO NOT THINK LIKE US (most important factor). Law means nothing. GETTING money is everything: EARNING $$ is unimportant. The larceny is deeply rooted in the culture, from the poorest to the richest. The US is just an ATM for them. Most will never learn English: it’s too much trouble. Respect for our culture and law means NOTHING to them. We are a teat, nothing more. We import that culture at our peril. It will always be rapacious in nature.
Residue from the Spanish spoils system.
Be thankful for disparate income societies where relative poverty exists. Without it, you have no underclass that is motivated to be itinerant and cross borders for laborious work.
Said another way: why is it that lawyers can charge $500-1000 an hour to represent an honest someone’s constitutional rights in court, but paying premium labor rates for equally necessary foodstuffs is simply legislated out of existence by importing relatively desperate populations?
They paid crap for full time RVers to harvest beets.
Because for the farmers, hiring workers is not as simple of an issue as you imagine it to be.
It’s not like they don’t have advocacy organizations that can be repurposed to help the process… instead of demanding more foreign slaves.
see YOU SEE the orgs because they have created PAIN FOR US.
people that dont see that Organizations can be repurposed, its because they never felt pain to even seen things like that can exist.
have our org are not fulfilling the social impact they mask their non-profits in. Tighten those rules, incentivize them to focus on Americans – and boom Magic
You get it. Good comment.
Can you explain, please?
Go back and watch the Hassett interview that Sundance posted yesterday.
Kevin doesn’t say it out loud, but we don’t have enough employees.
Here is the link:
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2025/07/03/white-house-nec-director-kevin-hassett-gives-overview-of-bbb-economic-impact/
I have been hearing that we don’t have enough Americans to do or want to do jobs since the 1990’s.
Especially since Big pharma wiped out a bunch with the mandatory fax.
Not enough young Americans. Per Congressional Budget Office (they care, because these stats affect gov’t costs)
See https://www.cbo.gov/publication/61164
The fertility rate for women under 30 is projected to keep falling: from 0.79 births per woman in 2025 to 0.62 by 2055. The rate for women age 30 or older is projected to increase, from 0.84 births per woman in 2025 to 0.98 by 2055, in part because CBO expects women to delay bearing children until older ages.
That 0.79 births per woman means 0.79 kids created for every 2 people now. (That is an average, for those who wonder how to get a fraction of a kid. Some pairs have 1 or even 2 kids, lots have 0 kids.
Anyhow, there is something evil in the culture if it cannot maintain or grow its population. In the meantime, we are seeing consequences.
As long as young (and old people alike) are taxed to death to support foreign labor, refugees & gimmigrants that have no such constraints on their reproduction, the fertility rates will continue to fall.
Funny (not funny) how the gubmint stats forget all about the number of babies (aka people) murdered before birth … Gotta be fertility, and other mumbo jumbo.
Those that do make it past the infant slaughter houses then have to run the heterophobic public school indoctrination marathon managed by drag queens, and do it all with “smart” phones glued to their noses. Thus, by the time they’re adults all they know about farming and ranching is that its where all the ignorant religious people, “uneducted” low lifes, meat eaters, and scary gun nuts are. Not to forget that it’s tough picking lettuce when packing 200 lbs of lard, and there ain’t no DoorDash, or anywhere to charge the Tesla!
So, gotta import skinny 3rd world drones to pick the arugala …
The jab makes you sterile.
Funny you should say that.
Being that it’s a holiday, I was browsing through Facebook to find gossip among people I used to know. Oddly, there are no babies being born. No changes since the elaborate wedding photos of daughters of my friends and neighbors, who by now are well into their thirties even late thirties.
In the instances where there was one child in 2019, there are no more.
Did everyone just stop simultaneously?? Obviously, not a scientific study but still.
.
To offset your observation:
I personally know of five babies all born within the last month.
Nope, my daughter just had her 5th at age 39. Out of 4 of us grown siblings, 1 couple has zero grandkids, 1 couple has 3, 1 couple is on their 4th and we have 8. No co-vaxes for this couples family and were the youngest. My niece just had her 3rd at age 40 but that’s my husband’s side. It costs way to much for an average family to have kids, even when both parents work! It’s all by design!
80% of vaxxed women have had serious reproductive problems … infertility, stillbirth, miscarriages, all kinds of things. Not to mention low sperm count in men.
The fertility rate for women are falling, so let’s import millions of illegal aliens.
Where have we heard that before?
Ah yes, from every globalist that ever lived.
wikileaks released the talks of Hillary and the elites.
they wanted to replace us because we were getting to smart, awake, non-compliant… they wanted a more compliant group to manage and mold.
it has nothing to do with fertility.
You drop rates, you incentivize familes, and you would have a boom in babies. They are doing the opposite because they hate you and your brain. it has nothing to do with how often we get pregnant (they actively destroyed our value so the mating doesnt occur as often, the actively paid others to have families and forced us into check to check)
“it has nothing to do with fertility.”
You betcha.
I believe Jeb! told us Latinos were more fertile. It seemed weird at the time Not sure how his wife felt about it
Columba Bush is pure Mexicana.
incentivize it. and start a propaganda program to get women to value men in this country of all colors including the most hated one now.
Isn’t that why Biden et al brought in 20 million illiterates? For more people and more voters?
I will say that is true to a point.
We have a small family cherry orchard for about the last 40 years.
When we were young, we were part of the workforce helping to bring in the crop.
But you hired actual pickers who know how to pick quickly and correctly.
These people are itinerant, they move from state to state to follow the harvest times.
Not something most American families wanted to do.
It is hard getting commitments. The last 2 years we lost crops of about 15 tons of cherries 🙁 because we could not find the workers. This year we supposedly have a commitment.
There is nothing sadder than to have a beautiful crop go to waste.
Back in the olden days, immigrants came at harvest time, did the work, got paid, and went back to their country. Seems like a good system to me – win-win. They don’t have to live full time in our country.
The Bracero Program? It had its issues but these can be rectified
jesus!
Build it, it will sustain. Build it as a something people want to be a part of..
raise the pay, increase the tech involved. build the neighborhoods around it and make it affordable. Cost offsets for families of workers getting access to the crops and the SHARED BRANCHS (partnerships of farms)
I’d have picked em and made brandy.. and I don’t drink..
I’m so sorry.
VERY sad about your crops! I’m not opposed to itinerant labor, but it must be legal. Our legal H2A Temp Agricultural Worker visa worked well for 30 years for a longtime peach farmer in CO. He had several members of the same family come to pick his very perishable crop, year after year. They were all like family.
He had a well-furnished barracks w/cooking facilities, and his physician daughter gave them medical care, so local hospitals weren’t going bankrupt thru illegals overwhelming the emergency rooms.
And THAT’S THE BENEFIT of the legal visa, that FL farmers refuse to use.
One summer during the OBiden disaster I did this same farm work alongside numerous Mexican-heritage Americans from Texas. Almost all of their parents were illegals. Almost to a person, they were honorable men and women.
Why does a big ag company pay them travel from Texas and back home after harvest, put them up in $3/day housing barracks, pay them $20/hour for 12-16 hour shifts?
Because there are not enough locals to fill the positions. There were a few gringos, but not many of us.
Until someone has done farm work and see it up close, they will say, “Why can’t Americans have those jobs?” Until three years ago, I used to say the same.
I support the farm visa because I know food production will grind to a halt if we don’t have it. Trump is proposing a common sense solution to getting food into your Aldi, Walmart, Publix, ShopRite, Market Basket, Giant Eagle, Meijer, Cash Wise, HyVee, Harris Teater, etc.
Thank you. Point taken. And you are most likely right. My pain is that I don’t believe Americans are offered this work at all. any more. There is a push for visa/foreign workers that has been going on for years and we have just accepted it. It has permeated every aspect of our work force and I see very little push back. I am so saddened for our country.
There was good reason why U.S. farm labor legend Cesar Chavez virulently opposed illegal aliens.
Because TPTB don’t want non-submissive American workers who are smart enough to get a better wage and buy a farm. It’s not the heritage, it’s the mindset.
Machines can do almost every job on a farm now. Machines pick strawberries. And cherries.
The vast majority of imigants (legal and illegal) employed in agriculture work in the corporate slaughter houses, feed lots, and meat processing plants. Almost all crops (fruit, vegetables, grains, etc) are harvested by machines now. Same in construction. Like those nice homes in the burbs, roads, high rise buildings, etc. It’s almost impossible to get a job in construction now days if you’re a citizen (particularly a caucasian citizen).
Corporations have been exploiting illegals for decades.
Yes
Yet we have homeless on every corner of every mid and major city
But we do have the workers! They are on the streets of Kensington, L.A., Seattle et al.
I had a drug addict do occasional work for me. Great carpenter. Got him in rehab and now he does roofing. You can’t imagine how that job has changed his life and attitude.
I knew a black lady carpenter. Just got her contractors license. She was from a multi generational welfare family.
Then she had to do some work to get benefits, applied at Habitat, discovered she had a talent for carpentry. Got her Apprentice & Journeyman certification, then her contractors license, and is putting a number of black welfare recipient women to work and training them.
She said that there was nothing that could match the sense of purpose, pride, & satisfaction she got from plying her trade & helping others to get off welfare! Just wonderful.
True. And there will be even fewer once American
manufacturing starts to roar.
This is all a good thing! Americans get career jobs that can sustain a family with a good standard of living.
Poor people who are impoverished that are strong and willing to work come here and keep prices lower for us and take care of their families. Some will become great citizens and the American dream lives on!
True Elle…great reminder.
We should thank God daily that there are people who will do seasonal farm work…and we should honor those same people for doing honest work.
We have plenty of poor Americans, thanks.
Yeah there are. Now me, I’d rather see American citizens get trained to obtain career jobs with skills that will support a family, not wish upon them a life of hard labor, cause haha you are poor and uneducated.
The headline of this article is H2A agricultural visas. If Trump secures the border and makes the labor legal, that means lots of jobs available. .
All of your complaints are about what could go wrong instead of discussing how we make sure this goes right: making sure Americans get preference; they are not subsidized by tax dollars; they go home when done, etc.
It’s like prohibition. You outlaw alcohol or drugs, you create a huge profit incentive to create a black market supply chains operated by bad people which create more problems than they solve.
Make it legal and there are still problems, but they are subject to the law if they want to operate.
He is compromising as he steers the large money that is slow to follow the Change.
prison labor is everywhere.
Put them out of work federal employees to real work. Biden added 35000+ federal workers there is your labor force. Most of those college degrees won’t make them competent, until they are shown how to work.
Lazy. And Do Not Want to Get Dirty. Farming is dusty and dirty. But fulfilling.
I was a almond farmer. None of my friends that I hired lasted 7 days. First paycheck THEY changed their home phone. Our Mexican friends would work 8 hours on Sunday. After Mass of course…..Truth!
Lazy seems a harsh term for “better options”.
It’s a free country and it’s more fun to work at a factory or a fast food joint that can provide year round or seasonal employment.
“it’s more fun to work at a factory or a fast food joint”
Or be a 4th generational welfare recipient.
Yes, we have people on welfare that are able bodied.
If we make the jobs held by migrants LEGAL, as evidenced by the needed visas, then the lazy bums will have to apply for them, no?
Or to be a middle class kid, whose father just bought them a car, pays the insurance , buys gas, pays the cell phone bill and gives them an allowance.
I would not have worked my rear off in my teenage years if my family were at the level of affluence as most middle class families today are.
Most middle class families are 2 paychecks x 2 working parents from living on the street.
“Americans arrived in droves to apply for jobs at a meatpacking plant in Omaha, Nebraska, days after a raid by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) wiped out half the staff. “
https://townhall.com/tipsheet/madelineleesman/2025/06/17/americans-applying-for-jobs-at-nebraska-center-where-immigration-raid-took-place-n2658894
Yea! But this is not a “migrant” job.
So riddle me this sunrei, when the meat packing, fast food, factory, maid and dishwasher, lawn mowing and construction jobs are filled and the able bodied were forced to work, then what?
Do the farmers just leave the strawberries unpicked. Too bad for the farmers, eh? Sorry about your harvest.
If visas are implemented wisely, can you not see beyond the past abuses to the benefit of legal migrant workers?
So then ICE has the job of tracking down these temporary workers to ensure they’re go back home?
Then there is the problem of anchor babies (at least until or if we get a favorable SC ruling).
And this “temp” visa becomes a backdoor route to gain permanent entry… come for “temp” work and never leave.
In contrast to the 50s when the temp workers actually went home after the growing season, today we have large swaths of the Southwest with towns/cities are mostly Hispanic (as in monolingual, not assimilated). It is far easier for those farm workers to just disappear into these communities and even start a family.
^^^ This right here.
Assuming we get to that place in your mind… we can re-evaluate. No need to solve a problem that doesn’t yet exist.
Continues to be my red line in the sand.
They can. They just don’t want to.
“That’s no bull!”
That’s what she said.
I’m seriously not getting how it is a BAD thing that we are on the cusp of ending an economic system based on illegal human trafficking and creating a legal migrant system!
Should we not be arguing on HOW to best implement the system effectively?
I’m seriously not getting why you advocate for foreign slaves when the labor participation rate for Americans hovers around the mid 60s.
Employment has to offer a means to get started & to grow skills for the sake of upward mobility.
Those opportunities belong to American kids & young adults, not to foreigners.
different brainwashing. different acceptances in reality.
Furthermore, at the same time that this sudden groundswell arises for these H2A visas for these Jobs That Americans Won’t Do, we get a parallel effort to Big Ag’s from Big Hotel for their housekeeping et al. More sweaty, dirty jobs, you know.
Meanwhile, Amish farmers in Pennsylvania, who voted for a certain someone, continue facing a DOJ going after them as if there had been no change in administration. Frankly, it’s disgusting.
So congratulations Brooke. No American in the quarter-millennium history of the nation ever got more out of a 4H membership than you have, and you’ll certainly be compensating your patrons during the distraction of “HEY – LOOK AT THAT BIG BEAUTIFUL BILL!!!”
Yes. Trump is.
The illegal aliens system, abusers and supporters have pushed it so far
, for so long and in such huge numbers that most of us have decided all immigration needs to be stopped, completely.
Then, and only then, can we we take a look at beginning legal immigration again. And even then in minimal numbers and for specific needs.
Americans can do any job. Wanting to do menial labor jobs is another kettle of fish.
50 years or more ago, every teenager had a part time or full time job doing these types of jobs. Many had to work to help feed their families. It’s not like that now.
Do you know anyone willing to do these jobs? Even if the pay doubled, I can’t see todays teenagers doing them.
If the economy completely tank and went into depression, there would be no shortage of workers for any job.
eliminate their welfare and many would be doing these jobs
Good point. But in a job seekers economy like we have now, applicants will have better options, than itinerant farm work.
Do we really want an economy where Americans HAVE to take these jobs? In other words, these are the ONLY jobs available to American citizens. People take these jobs when they don’t have options.
make farms not suck.
make farm partnerships where grocery stores pop up to provide to members cost savings
the SNAP program via labor essentially. no not making welfare people do it. the CONCEPT not the the actual of SNAP.
making a program that feeds people involved at a lower cost – nothing to do with the Government except incentivizing non-profits and other tools they have.
No, but they certainly are instructive.
I just got off the phone with an individual that is gutted that his 19 year old son is disrespecting him.
He just bought the son a $5000.00 “ beater” pays his ex wife pays the boys cell phone bill.
The boy lives with the ex. He does not pay for his food or room and board.
They are paying for his pilot’s training, any part time work he does goes to his Motorcycle ( also bought by the dad.) and partying.
Did I mention that the mum works for a major airline and the boy flies to Europe or Hawaii pretty much on a whim.
Stories like these in our community are not uncommon.
Affluence can be serious impairment to character development.
Cheers!
society was against that boy.
all of our systems are flawed.
holding young men in school until they are Alexander the Great’s age when he was conquering the world is blasphemy.
Agreed on the school B.S.
Held hostage there in many cases.
Cheers!
Agreed. Good management makes the difference in every situation. Wealthy parents who teach their children responsibility and establish healthy boundaries for them don’t have this problem.
How many times have I posted and nothing appeared🤣🤣. I hit done instead of post. Yes, my immediate family is all blue collar workers. Farm worker, construction worker and landscaper! Americans do these jobs if there not undercut or underpaid because of migrants! Not to mention kids these days are not all spoiled! They are bored, have no transportation and their families are struggling. Opportunity and means would get them to work!
Read my above comment. If they can do these jobs, why haven’t they done them for over 65+ years? No one ever stepped up, said they won’t to do the job, and made it an issue, until now.
^^^^^^ Spot. On.
Are you sure about that MaineCoon? I am beginning to think we have been trained to believe this so corporatist/globalist can bring in cheap labor. I have come to this conclusion over time…after watching the creeping into every other industry from tech, to Trucking and others…
I’m just telling you how it worked from my 1959 timeframe. They filled their gap in work forces by importing them.
Now, OBBB will legalize the process (what ever that means, it hasn’t be specified publicly), but as Secy Brooke said we will then have a legal workforce in that sector, but will not interfere with farming and food supply.
Nothing precludes citizens from applying for those positions.
OBBB will bring the standards for seasonal farm workers up to snuff. However that’s done, it needs to be done. USA fulltime residents certainly could apply for the seasonal positions. Maybe the upgrade protocols will make some want to do so. I seriously dowbt it, having seen the process in south Florida all my life.
you’d be open to people brainstorming how to make it Americans only. if no good ideas popped up, then fine.
That temp agricultural visa has been around for DECADES. What we don’t have is ENFORCEMENT of the conditions. It’s a well-known secret in FL, promoted by our Ag Commissioner, that no one will enforce, even though it bankrupts our small rural hospitals.
One reason why I refuse to buy FL produce except from local farms where I know who farms the fields.
Greedy bastards. Adam Putnam was one of their most compliant wh0res.
AG Secy Brooke (with President Trump standing next to her at the airport presser returning from Iowa 2 days ago) said next week they would be making an announcement re: the visa program for seasonal workers and changes that were to be forthcoming. People need to quit looking backwards and by now should havee figured out that President Trump has this.
Do you think that the 10 foreign work visas our gubmint offers just started under Xiden or that the 30-50M illegal alien squatters here before Xiden let in 12M+ more just arrived?
I stated what I KNOW from seeing it first hand in fFlorida prior to 1959, which was not the ‘start date’ for the process.
Government didnt incentivize that.
thats it, thats the only reason.
Simple answer, there is too much extra cost and bureaucracy to hiring Americans.
If you hire an illegal, at the end of the day you give him his $300 or whatever ($30 dollars an hour, $10 an hour went out a long time ago) and you are done.
If you hire an American and pay him $30 an hour, you have to match social security and medicare, pay workman’s comp and unemployment insurance and hire someone to do payroll to keep up with all of the paperwork.
Ag is a dangerous field and workman’s comp may cost over 30% of your payroll depending on what they are doing and what state you are in. That $30 American is costing you toward $50 an hour. Plus the American doesn’t get the entire $30. You have to withhold his taxes.
It is more complicated than that because everything varies by state and job description but you get the picture.
Ding ding ding…we have a winner. Hiring foreign workers is cheap and easier then Americans.
Dah. That’s always ben the issue.
As Secy Brookes said, the process will be legalized in a manner which will make all our seasonal workers legal. Nothing has been detailed as to what that will entail. For all we know it could be competitive wages. You are stuck on what it has been, understandably. But I know for a fact with my own eyes that since my timeframe of moving to south Florida in 1959, immigrants were imported because US citizens wouldn’t do the job or their wasn’t a big enough work force to fill the seasonal positions.
This workforce is needed and we will have to see what the final details are that Secy Brookes referred to as forthcoming, but one thing is for certain, if US citizens want to apply, they can. Fact is, they don’t. Most people can live on a seasonal job for the year; whereas, Mexicans probably can as it way higher than their Mexico wages.
Nothing precludes US citizens from applying for these jobs. They don’t want the jobs picking farm products (beans, tomatoes, etc.) in the fields in 100 degree Florida heat whereas Mexicans will. Just the fact that people with darker skin tones fare better in the sun than white skin is a factor.
do those workers pay for their own home, food, healthcare, etc
if not, who does
Exactly!
Under the H2A Temporary Agricultural Visa, the farmer has to: 1) pay the worker’s transportation from his last point of departure to the farmer’s farm 2) must provide clean lodging with cooking facilities & cooking tools, showers & toilets, and 3) PROVIDE FOR THE MEDICAL CARE OF WORKERS ON THE JOB.
#3 is what the farmers really want to avoid, and will do anything to dump that cost of care onto the taxpayers. I know of a small rural hospital in W. Martin County, opened with funds from local taxpayers, that had to shuts its doors a few months after opening, because the illegals used up THE ENTIRE YEAR’S BUDGET, MEANT FOR THE LOCALS WHO PAID FOR IT, in a couple of months.
The locals who paid for it NEVER GOT TO USE IT. And the greedy farmer told those local people to go Fu-k themselves, wouldn’t pay a penny. Corrupt Farm Bureau stood behind him. Greedy bastards.
We need to separate the actual farm labor question from other labor jobs.
We absolutely need migrant farm labor.
Filling all of these construction jobs and other positions with foreign labor has been depressing wages for years.
The farmer seldom gets the increase in prices for farm products. Corporate ag gets the money. I have said for years that all farming should be limited to small family farms. Local farm, local butcher local grocer and you have a thriving local economy and better food.
When dad rolled your butt out of bed at four o’clock in the morning to get the cows milked or the crop picked, you learned how to work and be responsible. You did not have to be told what time to come home and go to bed either.
ITS ONLY CHEAP because of the RULES THE GOVERNMENT MADE.
Change the Rules, change the thoughts. ITS THAT SIMPLE
Yep, folks are figuring out the government and the multitudes of its bureaucracies are the enemy, and survival requires a work around.
🥂
Yes that hits the bullseye –the full cost of paying American payroll is higher than hiring foreigners. That’s the problem, not the answer.
The answer cannot be to say Americans just have to get used to being frozen out of the job market in an ever growing number of jobs and industries
What’s the point of sealing the border and deporting illegals if they can turn around and use these carve-out visa programs to enter legally and never leave when their temp visa expires?
The word will go out –come for the temp visa and stay forever.
August 2024 Labor Report —
Native-born Americans lost more than 1.3 million jobs over the lastyear, while foreigner-born workers gained over 1.2 million jobs.
.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/new-jobs-report-shows-stunning-decline-for-native-born-americans-opposite-for-foreign-born-workers/ar-AA1q82Az
Every time you say “illegal,” replace it with “slave.” There ya go!
Then we need to make it make sense!
Because the demographic that would most likely take those jobs is disproportionally black.
We’d never hear the end of it. So we use foreigners who don’t speak English because it’s less uncomfortable.
AI will replace a lot of us. But farming, particularly harvesting, demonstrates the limits of automation.
And can you imagine the howls of white kids who cry if they have to solve more than three math problems in a row if they had to stand out in the heat and pick strawberries all day? lol
Ain’t nobody willing to pay $13 for a small tray of berries or $42 for Smuckers jam.
Prison REFORM.
let it into your head. let it in.
Would you want prison labor coming to your small farming town?
in the late 70’s I was on an AFB in Northern Maine, and in October everything stopped so that the potato harvest could be done,,,,Canucks were allowed to come over the border to work, and I went into the potato fields to earn extra money…75cents per 300 lb barrel was what was paid, the tractor dug up the potatoes, you picked them up and put them in the basket between your legs that held 30 lbs, that meant 10 trips to the barrel, and a flatbed with a winch came by and picked them up, the ticket with your number on it was how you were paid,,,,can you imagine a basement dweller doing that nowadays? BTW, this stoop labor caused me to lose twins
some of the jobs are highly seasonal , most Americans want full time work… its not american not wanting to do them its they have better alternatives for full time work
America could do the jobs but the pay would need to go way up and that will put prices up on food. That is not a bad thing in my opinion but it can’t happen overnight. From what I’ve read farms will be needing less and less manual labor because of tech advances. Hotels in Canada manage to stay in business without illegal labor but they cost more than American hotels. This is not a simple easily fixed problem. It takes time to transition out of dependence on illegal labor.
They can, many people think it’s menial or beneath them but that’s baloney with buzzwords!
Paying US workers a fair wage is obviously a viable and immediate alternative.
Illegal immigration is ‘necessary’? You sound like a lobbyist for corporate agribusiness.
Flyover country is full of all kinds of people who would happily do farm labor if it paid a decent wage.
Thank you Buck. Clearly hiring of farmworkers and hotel workers is a complex model that we lack understanding. These people are clearly extremely skilled and irreplaceable. We cannot swap them for American workers it is all too important a $ making model. All I keep hearing with ANY foreign worker hired on any Visa, is that they are VITAL to be hired over any American or corporations will not make their profits, i.e. cheap labor. Microsoft laid off 9k this week and are replacing with visa’s. I never bought into the replacement theory until recently, but here I am…
“Clearly hiring of farmworkers and hotel workers is a complex model that we lack understanding“
Yes, apparently it is.
Agree. See my reply to you downpage with link. After ICE raided a Nebraska meatpacking plant June 10th, within 2 days Americans had flooded the employer’s waiting room filling out applications for these jobs that we’re told Americans won’t do.
Amen.
Obviously, blue collar and lower-wage US citizens are desperate for any jobs that will pay fair, living wages. They have been shafted by corporate America and big immigration for decades, having had their wages and life aspirations knocked out from underneath them.
I thought ‘America First’ meant a priority on hiring US citizens at decent wages? You know, help out the American lower classes?
We have 330M in the country there are no jobs that cannot be filled by US citizens.
How about making US lower wage workers a priority for a change? I thought that’s what MAGA and America First were all about?
thank you sunrei and Buck. This is the hill I die on. Every single job within in the US should go to a US citizen. Full stop. American citizen. IF, and only IF there are open jobs should very few/well definite, limited visas be allowed. And monitored. Path to any citizenship be long and very hard. We should also stop with the student visa’s. Every foreign student takes away from American future generations.
For years we have been “trained” to believe American’s wouldn’t do these farm jobs. Then we were told there were no STEM graduates so we needed tech workers…. Anyone take a gander at the H1B’s now they are bringing in for Truckers? How about welders? HVAC? Just saw a list for barista’s recently. Visa workers are for one thing: Profit. Profit. Profit. And excluding Americans from decent paying jobs. Globalists are taking over our country bit by bit in the form of “legal” immigration. You are either America First. Or you are not.
Thanks for the reminder about the history of Mission Creep with H1B
… first Americans are frozen out of STEM jobs
…now H1B is being applied to a whole range of jobs and industries including as you say H1B for truckers.
America First means Americans First.
“Aug (2024) jobs report shows more pain for native-born Americans, who’ve lost more than 1.3 million jobs over the last year, while foreign-born workers have gained over 1.2 million jobs
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/new-jobs-report-shows-stunning-decline-for-native-born-americans-opposite-for-foreign-born-workers/ar-AA1q82Az
Glad to see the beginning of a reversal in the latest reported numbers –altho I wonder if it may be temporary —Is it due to llegals hiding from ICE, waiting for either the midterms or 2028?
The H2A carve out risk succumbing eventually to mission creep and over time expanding to enable foreigners in an even greater range of industries. As has already happened w H1B.
Agreed. I see it up close every day. American’s are being pushed out of every industry now. The h1B’s no one is even discussing or addressing. No one. Not one person in this administration is even acknowledging the serious issue of American workers being replaced by offshoring and H1Bs. Having DJT make such a distinction for these H2A’s is extremely upsetting for all the American’s who have been pushed out of jobs. I look at resumes all day. Roughly 20% are people who haven’t worked for almost 6 months or more. No one is even talking about this.
I don’t disagree with you, but this article is about H2 visas. So that’s why we are focused on that here.
Amen.
Well said.
It is a fact that in the American South, in the last century, that the working poor whites picked cotton and whatever else there was to harvest.
Today’s working poor have much better options. Our economy is strong.
Years ago I worked with a lady who had moved to FL from Canada. It took her either 15 years and $12,000 to earn her citizenship.
remove ‘either’
I was at Nike when they outsourced all the corporate accounts payable jobs to India and fired almost all the Americans. The pain of dealing with people in India was significant but it was a move designed to impress Wall Street and increase the stock price by reducing head count.
It was disgusting.
I see this outsourcing/offshoring every day to India. there is zero quality, but it is cheap. Same as hiring h1B Visa’s. No care for the American worker. What they just did with Microsoft is a perfect example of what has been happening in our country for over 20 year. Our youngest generation has zero hope or chance.
H1B Visas have been around for 35yrs.
What has been done with the various work visa programs is criminal.
The history of the legal guest worker program goes back many decades. The Bracero program was started in 1942.
It’s not just the wage. It’s the temporary nature and harsh working conditions, that make these jobs veeery unpopular with todays youth.
Teenagers used to do these jobs and some still do. For anyone seeking a job this would be the lowest rung of employment. With our booming economy there are plenty of higher paying options. A factory job will always be a better job than stoop labor. If you doubled the farm labor wages, this will put upward pressure on other jobs due to law of supply and demand.
Our President has always been a pragmatic man seeking optimal solutions not perfect solutions.
Remember when farmers had large families? I do because I am 1 generation removed from them.
Family farms are disappearing at an alarming rate because they can’t compete with factory farms or comply with onerous regulations.
I do remember. I love family farms and agree about the tragedy of their disappearance.
I also know farming is a very tough way to make a living unless you have a lot of capital and its not easy then.
Many of the younger generation watched there parents toil on farms, seven days a week for not a lot of money.
They used to say farmers live poor and die rich, because of all the capital tied up in a working farm,
large or small.
Where exactly did I write that “Illegal immigration is ‘necessary’”?
You sound like someone with reading comprehension challenges that flies off the handle with insults rather than revisiting what is written to learn if YOU might have not properly understood the point.
Have a happy 4th.
Making today’s illegals legal doesn’t change anything it just rewards them & their employers for persevering.
The claim that this is an amnesty program misrepresents what’s actually happening. This proposal is aimed at improving the H-2A temporary visa system, which the U.S. already uses to legally bring in seasonal agricultural workers when there aren’t enough Americans to fill those roles.
This isn’t about rewarding illegal behavior. It’s about filling a clear labor gap through a structured, legal, and temporary process. Workers under this system are required to perform specific jobs and then return to their home countries. That’s not amnesty. This is addressing legal work visa with built-in limits.
What’s really happening here is that some people are counting on the public not understanding how immigration law actually works. So they shout “amnesty” to provoke outrage and pretend this is some kind of betrayal. But that only works if people don’t dig deeper.
The President has a duty to secure the border and make sure the economy has access to lawful, temporary workers when needed. This effort reflects both priorities.
Semper Fi
I question the temporary part.
Come for the temporary visa and never leave.
Some may not even bother picking crops….get into the country and disappear.
And then there is mission creep (see H1B visa program) where it will likely expand to include more and more jobs/industries.
If a legal temp comes here and never leaves, then they are now illegal. Drawing benefits? Illegal. Voting? Illegal.
The problem hasn’t been the visa. Its the tracking. I trust my President to fix those issues.
Seasonal farm labor here in rural Minnesota gets paid $18-22/hour.
Most of the seasonal labor drives up from Texas because we do not have enough people who want a seasonal job and work 14-16 hour days in 90-100 degree weather.
I am white and did this seasonal farm work three summers ago. My favorite co-worker had driven up from Eagle Pass for 23 years. Probably 150 total workers and maybe 10 of us were locals.
I stuck with it through both pea-pack and then corn-pack. It is dirty, exhausting, tiring work…yet it was fulfilling. I’m glad I did it.
Use to be that teenagers mowed lawns, did farm work, washed cars, etc. See any of that lately?
No, she advocates for making illegal aliens legal aliens.
We should just keep the foreign slaves legally.
“I get tired of people rushing “ (to complain)…. A very hearty amen! And, we know who they are…
As said many times….solutions will be optimal, not perfect….and COMMON SENSE is the driving force. Personally, I wouldn’t want it any other way …anyone who has had administrative responsibilities in business knows this.
I’ve had some dealings with legal, seasonal Mexican workers, and I can tell you, the system needs help. It has been slow, laborious, complicated, and taxing. And that was for a business that had employed the same workers for 15 years, year after year! I can’t imagine what it would be like for first-time hirers to navigate. I’m glad they’re fixing it.
Here in Southern B.C. we too have migrant farm workers.
Sikh and other farmers employ them by the thousands.
The sanitation and the farm vehicles used are third world.
Mexicans with work visas that work on a Sikh friends farm on the Canadian side of the U.S. border were offered sponsorship ( legal) by my friends dad.
The politely and with a smile declined, they take their bankroll back to Mexico and put the money into their own farms.
As the bureaucracy etc in Canada is too stifling unless you are a major corporation.
Cheers!
When my family moved to south Florida in 1959, there were seasonal farm workers from Mexico. Who knows how far back this process went before that time frame. No one viewed it as an issue then, nor as I’ve repeatedly stated, do I see it as an issue now, but commend President Trump and Secy Brooke for legalizing it completely. This is needed to keep our food supply chain intact and the seasonal workers legal immigrants.
These workers aren’t the criminal element of the illegal immigrant issue. They served a viable aspect of seasonal farming and the food chain.
The seasonal workers need to be exempt from the remittance tax.
It is too dangerous for them to go home with a lot of money.
Very good explanation. We need to have a process in place that vets these people and watches them closely. We need a process to keep them documented properly
BS. America has plenty of people that can do these jobs but no American is willing to be to be treated as a foreign slave doing backbreaking work for slave wages.
Can a will (without an economic collapse) are two different things. A properly setup guest worker program, if probably needed for the country.
Properly setup meaning:
Temporary visas where the workers go home when the seasonal jobs are done.
Not eligible for welfare programs.
Workers only, not extended families.
Program should not discriminate against American workers.
Yes, but… it all looks good on paper but have you lived in a town that uses this type of labor?
Our once beautiful, safe county has been utterly destroyed by illegal migrants. We now have violent crime, no housing, our schools are a mess and try getting medical care.
THANK you! We have known for decades that the farm worker visa program was broken. We know fairly well how many temporary foreign farm workers we need each year. Note, that these are NOT immigrant workers, because they have no intention of immigrating. Their intention is to come here to do seasonal work and then return home. We KNOW how many we need, yet every year we do not allocate the full amount of visas for it, forcing many of those workers to enter illegally, thereby further supporting the illegal alien industry.
You go out to buy bread and milk, but the government won’t let the grocery stores stock the amount that meets demand, forcing you to buy “underground” bread and milk from the corner drug dealer.
The whole thing has been a scam for a long time.
Well said and totally agree. There is nothing wrong with bringing in workers when needed as long as it is controlled and done with America’s best interests in mind. The transition from illegal labor to legal labor will not easy. It’s going to take time and good strategy and management. It has to be controlled or it will cause too much disruption to American businesses and economy.
I read quite some time ago that the total number of foreign farm workers amounts to a little less than 1% of the 11 million illegals in the U.S. That would put it at around 100,000 of them, which may seem a very low number until you consider they are not always in the same place working the same crop, and it does not include close family members who may move around with them. They move from state to state or within a state working different crops on different farms over the course of a year or a season, and some return (or at least they once did) to their home countries (mostly Mexico) when there are no crops to work. Few if any of them reside on a single farm from year to year, and they are found almost entirely in the rural parts of the country and rarely in the large cities. Maybe the urban illegals don’t want to do the jobs the rural illegals do?
If the 11 million figure seems low, it is because it is and always was. That 11 million figure was quoted by politicians and the press almost without fail for the 20 years from 2000 to 2020. It rarely ever changed. It was 11 million year in and year out because it sounded good and familiar and was intentionally kept that way for political purposes. It originated in a Census Bureau estimate from April 2000 that was based on data collected and analyzed as of the end of 1999. The estimate was for 10.9 million illegals, which nicely rounded up to the familiar 11 million figure. But it came with an estimate of a yearly average increase of 750,000. Some years the increase might rise or fall, but it was an average 750,000 annual increase. Do the math and it works out to an additional 15 million (or a total of about 26 million illegals) as of the start of Biden’s term. Then the floodgates opened and best estimates are that as many as 20 million more entered in those four years, for a new total of around 46 million in the U.S. No one knows for sure, and certainly the Biden people weren’t trying to count them. Reportedly about a million have voluntarily left since Biden left, so maybe 45 million are in the country now.
But the demand for temporary farm workers remains fairly constant. Their availability lessens the need to automate the planting and gathering and so on of many crops. If automation were to increase, then the numbers of workers needed should decline, though it would never be close to zero. But right now they are needed and the AG industry has little incentive to automate for many crops.
There always could have been a specific visa program for farm workers, and there once was (Bracero), but politicians liked not having a specific program for them as an excuse to push “comprehensive immigration reform” for all illegals. How many times just this year have you heard that crops will go unpicked if deportations go up? The thing is, the numbers of farm workers needed by AG has never really affected the increases in the total number of all illegals. The number of farm workers needed remains fairly constant while the total of all illegals keeps increasing (at least before this year). The farm workers always could have been treated separately from the rest.
11 million illegals? Guffaw!
–“Maybe the urban illegals don’t want to do the jobs the rural illegals do?–
Now that’s an interesting thought to ponder on with a lot of possible insights and angles to consider.
My 1st thought was–I wonder what the ratio is of rural versus urban illegal aliens ? How about the rural/urban ratio of legal migrant workers or visa holders?
And thank you for your insightful post!
This is a issue with big AG whom Rollins enjoys the company of…..small Ag follows the rules ,just look up what Merry Weather Farm has to say about this carve out for Big AG. By the way the owner worked at the WH first Adm. By calling those in MAGA who are not for this carve out “extreme” isn’t Trump including stephen miller? This was Rollins description of MAGA not Trumps, he was parroting and this was definitely a test run of Rollins proposal.
You know nothing about agriculture. It now operates at scale. All family farms are multimillion dollar operations. Tractors cos $250k+, harvesting equipment is 1.5 – 2.0 times that. Very little ag labor is manual labor. Mechanization, automation, low till, and chemicals rule.
This Rollins BS abt farms needing illegals is nonsense. What farmer is going to let a no -English speaking, unknown illegal with no accountability operate a quarter million dollar piece of equipment?
No one in my family. And yes, we operate a family farm. I’d rather pay someone twice minimum wage who is a local, known citizen.
Yes and no. Like all government programs it will be ripe for abuse. I understand we need workers but we also have many youth without jobs, work ethic and way too much time on their hands. Living in a rural area I see both sides of the coin. My son works for a large farmer 6 days a week, making less in the “whole” picture than these migrants make. Yes they also work 6 days a week, but also get free housing, bills paid, doctors visits free, processed free beef and rides to Walmart, grocery stores and western Union on there day off to send earned money out of the country. None of those amenities are given to any of the few citizens that work on that farm. To add insult to injury, my grandson struggles to find a summer job, without transportation or availability for public transit. Last summer he did work, but the limited spots available through the school program in town, were given to students who didn’t get the chance to work last year.
My point is Americans first, whether it’s part time/summer or full time year round! If these illegals can be given free transport, free housing including bills, then flush out money from our economy and get paid minimum wage, they can sit on the sidelines, while citizens earn money to learn a trade and spend there money here!
A large percentage of farm visa workers overstay their visas and move on to other American jobs that pay higher wages . Some use having children and birthright to stay permanently.
all aliens allowed into the U.S. need to be monitored.
President Trump is a CEO, not a dyed-in-the-wool politician. He knows his responsibility is to steer the ship where We The People voted for it to go, and to see and solve problems along the way. His gift for solving problems lies in his keen ability to identify and clearly define them. Then to work through possible fixes and choosing the correct one. I’ve never seen, and likely never will again, anything like this guy. He is bonafide exceptional at just so much!
Little Z doesn’t even need to read the writing on the wall. PDJT is going to step aside at this point.
Time to enter retirement and exile, Z. The grift is over.
Zelensky just completely banned the Orthodox Church from Ukraine.
Let’s have no more nauseating talk about the purpose of this war as a righteous attempt to “Save Democracy”.
Time for exile for the Little Dictator?
Well past it.
He’s had more than his 15 minutes strutting on the international stage. It seems his cue to get off it has been given.
The tea leaves have been read. Life comes at you in a hurry (and other stuff). We would ask the Ceaucescus to advise him on that point, but they aren’t available for comment…
Very few would weep.
People do not realize that Vloddy is well into a sixth year of a five – year presidential term.
An H2A visa is a good idea. However, the farmers helping workers obtain the visa must be held accountable for providing reasonable accommodations for the workers. That means clean, not vermin infested, dormitories with running water and heating/air conditioning.
I don’t think Farmers should be in the housing business. In my area most of what was done by migrant farm workers is automated. The migrants that still work the fields are bringing their own campers or trailers or staying in motels. Migrant housing has been gone here for 40 years.
Agree! Why should farmers be any more responsible for “ reasonable accommodations” for their employees than anyone else? Makes no sense whatsoever. You think farmers, with limited land, should build dormitories…boy, would that open a can of worms! And what would they do with those accommodations for their employees than rest of the year?
In my rural (previous) home of California, the state declared ANY single-family rural zoned property gets to allow large farmworker housing complexes, even for tiny parcels. We lived in a small community of 5 acre parcels and such a complex was applied for across the road despite being at least 15 miles from the ag center. So our zoning protections were violated, property values were going to plummet and we had to put up with blaring Mexican music and traffic at all hours. Btw, the rich white farmer refused to use his land for such. We ended up moving to Utah.
How awful for you – especially the loud Mexican music. I would have been calling the police every night.
Our home then was at least 35 min from the sheriff’s station and they considered such “nuisance” calls as low priority. Plus we thought it prudent not to complain given the rough looks of some of the younger residents (no idea if they were actually ag workers or drug dealers).
Trump just put a huge dent in stopping human trafficking where the individuals had zero rights under the law.
Let’s celebrate for a moment before we demand the farmers build housing and taxpayers hire an army of inspectors to fine the farmers if the a/c isn’t cold enough.
That said, I do agree with you that the workers should not be housed by taxpayers.
Why? They choose to come here to work, they can choose their accommodations as well. Then they can go home until next year.
When I have to travel for my job, the company does not build me a house to stay in.
I live in an area where farmers grow a lot of labor intensive crops that can’t be automated yet. Lettuce, strawberries etc. We already have an H2A program. Labor contractors hire foreigners for 3 months, negotiating pay plus housing/meals. They rent out an older motel for the 3 months where all the people stay that work for them. They have buses or vans that transport the temp workers to and from work, to medical appointments, and I see them every Saturday at Walmart getting a week’s worth of groceries onto their bus. The bus driver is always bilingual.
The farmer themselves are small to medium operations which pay a labor contractor for so many day laborers per day, OR as in the case of strawberries, they pay per flat picked. Some of these guys can pick $30/hours worth, less of course what the labor contractor charges for housing.
The H2A program was invented to help lower the cost to come live abroad temporarily (short-term rental, car, English skills etc) and provide a very supervised environment for these workers with lots of translation assistance. These guys aren’t MS-13 robbing banks in the dead of night or trafficking girls out of their suitcase. They work hard and then go home, hardly leaving any sign they were here on our local communities. They are also coming here alone. No kids in public school, no affordable housing, no free lunch, no wife on medicaid, no teenagers joining a local branch of MS-13.
Expanding the program will help with farm staffing, while still giving trump the ability to control the narrative and further crack down on MS-13.
Thank you! Yes! This is what we need and I’m grateful to Trump that he is pulling the teeth needed to make it happen!!
Cali I agree with most of what you stated, I will just say that I am in my 60s and still remember at the start of each school year having to fill out forms, or my mother did, stating whether my parents were migrant workers. So that means quite a few did come with family to work as migrant guest workers. I imagine different farming situations brought different needs.
Based on what President Trump said during his speech in Iowa, the employers are going to be held responsible tor these workers. In a way, I’m fine with that. What I’m not fine with for any immigrant (legal or illegal) is that they participate in any taxpayer supported transfer payments.
I state it this way to be all inclusive of any program from local to federal welfare type programs to social security to medicade to medicare. There are millions of refugees who are in social security and social security disability. SS Disability exploded under Obama. There are people who never paid in or pretended to be disabled. I saw it happen. This is why so-called social security is going broke.
They still have to pay taxes for Federal income tax, OASDI, medicare. That’s for the privilege of living in this country.
Why can’t americans do these jobs?
What happened after ICE raided a meatpacking plant in Nebraska? These are the jobs the Left insists Americans don’t want to do.
“As ICE was removing illegal aliens working at the plant, a line of American citizens were waiting to fill the positions.
Trump ally Steve Cortes summed it up: “So…immigration enforcement leads to a rush of applicants for those jobs from…American citizens!”
Even NBC News had to admit the reality of what was happening at Glenn Valley Foods, no matter how against its “undocumented immigrants” narrative that reality flies in the face of:
“Every seat in the waiting area of Glenn Valley Foods was occupied with people filling out job applications early Thursday afternoon, two days after the meatpacking plant became the center of the largest worksite immigration raid in the state of Nebraska so far this year,” NBC News reported on Sunday.
https://trib247.com/articles/what-happened-after-ice-raided-a-meatpacking-plant-in-nebraska
That is not a migrant job.
You’re right, that was not supposed to be a “migrant” job.
So we went from migrants who work “field” jobs, to migrants who work factory jobs, that companies wholesale (see Haitians in Ohio story) import to work in their factories;
to meat-packing plants (See Tyson foods stories) that close down one factory full of American workers, and open up in another State to fill with “migrants”;
to booksellers/periodicals (See Ingram books), who import as many “migrants” as possible to do those jobs;
to bakeries, where if you don’t speak Spanish, you won’t be hired;
to roofing and construction jobs, who will work on the cheap for any of these companies (after all, what normal American knows how to use a ruler or swing a hammer);
to hotel workers, who nod at you, and you have to point to the roll of TP that you want off their cart (yeah, Americans don’t know how to scrub a toilet, run a vacuum or make a bed);
to fast-food workers (McDonalds never met a “migrant” they didn’t like.)
The list is endless.
This discussion is about H2 visas. Ag Migrant workers.
A job in a meat processing plant is not a migrant job. It is a good paying job you can raise a family on.
Exactly my point! Big Ag, Big Hospitality, Big Tech, Big Restaurant, Big ____, are all lobbying for an exemption from hiring Red-blooded Americans to fill those jobs because their bottom-line profit will not be the same, it will be less. All of them will ask for a carve-out for their industry. A year or so ago there was discussion and videos posted where companies were caught falsely posting “help wanted” ads, only they made sure those ads were never seen, as they filled those jobs with H1 and H2 visas, but they had to make it look good.
The United States has had decades of dumbing down and demeaning of our citizens, stripping those jobs from Americans, giving them useless degrees, knowing they would never get a job in those fields. We have had years of “Better get used to being a service industry.” Entrepreneurial spirit is a no-go for Americans, but “Hey, look at this small-business from people from Zimbabwe who are trying to make their dreams come true in America..we need to give them small business loans, and then forgive the loans.”
America First!
America First!
Actually, there are no “migrant” jobs in the United States of America.
All jobs in America can be filled by Americans.
Stand back! He’s on a roll!
.
I still just want to see every single illegal alien from Reagan’s era to present deported.
You should not be rewarded in any way shape or fashion for being here illegally.
I would expect deportation if I went and tried to stay in another country.
And, believe me you would!
unless the laws have changed, in Costa Rica not only do you have to demonstrate financial independence to move there so you will not be a burden to them, but you also cannot avail yourself of the government services (health) . And, I seem to remember when a friend moved there to live (after being pretty much financially wiped out in the market several years ago), they also had to attend classes about what living there entailed.
Maybe someone here can provide current info about that.
Ironically , I believe in Mexico foreigners still cannot own property…most have long term leases.
Not familiar with laws in Europe but point is most other nations have been much more strict…and certainly do not give free cell phones, credit cards, etc.
I know several young men/women that won’t work for Any wage. We’ve tried to hire farm hands and help around our mechanic shop…..We’ve offered cash, way above min wage for our area, pretty nice working conditions and they MAY show up and may NOT.
SOME young people Don’t want to work for Any price, unless they can be looking @their phones.
Were they on welfare? If not, blame the parents for letting them sit in their phones. Not ideal, but the sign of a prosperous country.
Or a spiritually, socially, economically bereft country.
I guess that Elon isn’t the only one that’ll fight to the death for more foreign workers from everywhere for everything.
Just what we don’t need is another visa category to be exploited in perpetuity.
“Farmers” employing illegals is code for big ag factory farms employing illegals so that they don’t have to pay citizens or invest in mechanization.
I never stop being amazed at the posters who have little to no faith in PDJT and his Team.
They think that the Trump Administration is being run by stupid people.
If he gets them 5 Big Wins then they complain about “what about this this and this?” as though those issues are not being looked at and a plan is being created to fix it.
This has the potential for far reaching effects.
When they visit my place of employment, for a work related injury or illness….I have to take time from my other sick patients trying to get the interpreters or interpreter systems. That takes time away from other, sicker paying Americans.
How would one feel if that patient who needed their nurse because they were starting to crash/die…was not afforded their nurse because she was ‘busy’ with federally mandated communication systems for an legal taking up space….”that patient” being your own loved one? Aging mother or father? Teenager hit by a car or in a bad accident?
Not to mention the time consuming drama that ensues when the illegal’s family wants to circumvent the established vising hours to be with whoever. Day after day, I see this and similar situations that delay care for others who are more in need. Getting hospital policies changed will never happen as the routine has been for over 20 years, to cater to them iregardless of unit needs and staffing.
It’s almost like we are overrun with Janet Jackson types. “What Have You Done For Me Lately?”
Seasonal farm workers are not a problem.
Indentured Tech Workers are a different matter. And Wide Open Borders the real issue.
ps; Patriotism is an idea from Heaven!
Regarding the H2A visa for agriculture topic. While I guess nice and needed (crops rot in fields), it might would be helpful to perhaps put some funds towards and encouraging local US folks to work. Or maybe some of those “work 20 hours per week for benefits” ones. This might be a tricky optics needle to thread with whining folks. I dont know. Might be a bridge too far in his/their focus on that part of the work force.
Brant, your mention of crops rotting in the field addresses the seasonality of harvesting. However, it doesn’t speak to the fact that crops are frequently remote from workers and there simply isn’t an available pool of bodies to pay for the temporary work to be done. Those are the main factors driving the need for a temporary influx of workers.
I don’t see those factors applying to fixed facilities, e.g. meatpacking.
Rollins is not trustworthy.
Potus, on the eve of the 4th of July, has caused an unnecessary black cloud over the holiday with his flip flop John Kerry waffling on amnesty for vast numbers of illegal aliens.
Cutesy carve outs are not going to fly with the people.
I guess a test would be like the raided meat packers having US citizens in line for work the day after an ICE raid. Do similar to farms? But can’t wait too long as produce rots in field. Farm work is very seasonal and geographically diverse. No real permanent domicile. It’s also “right now” when the crops are in. I’m sure many of us think of farming as our local organic farmer on 15 acres. Make that at least 100 acres.
Young folks spend a year or two traveling the country get a feel for the land and people? Of course DC and deep state would hate the possibility of young folks, late teens early 20somethings get a respect and appreciation for the land. Maybe (ouch the word) subsidized to farmers? That would probably be a “tax” I would be ok with. Just throwing things out there.
My extended family has been farming for decades and altho each generation divides the land further, I am familiar with the large acreage you mention and larger.
At least in the midwest w grain crops, it is almost entirely automated. The farmer needs to be in the cab of the tractor to be able to jump out to remove a branch, rock or other obstacle. Other than that ..it is just sit there in the tractor while it goes thru its paces. No hiring of illegals or anyone –just the farmer and teen or adult kids.
I can’t speak to California vegetable farms or to dairy farming. Altho I recall seeing that dairy farms are getting highly automated too.
Just like H1B visas have become a vehicle for flooding the country with high paid foreigners who fill jobs that Americans want, I expect H2A over the years will become a similar vehicle. Seal the southern border, then create vehicles for side-stepping it –temp workers that never leave and can’t be found to be deported.
Call it what it is: “HUMAN TRAFFICKING.” No more euphemisms. If these workers live in fear of discovery, they will “do anything they’re told.” You understand what I mean …
If they are “here temporarily,” you can damned well “put them on the radar,” and expect unannounced enforcement inspections to keep you honest. If you ARE doing right by them, you have nothing to fear.
I really don’t care if a head of lettuce costs a few cents more.
Its not just “big ag”….
Jr. needs to get in on the act…a hospital I know has “hired” an Indian nurse_ who moved from England to Ireland to have an easier go at a ‘work visa’ for a hospital…in America…
A three year contract.
The nursing shortage is because the hospitals won’t pay a proper wage to Americans. Their own creation and excuse to pay foreigners less.
The tighter we seal the souther border, the greater will be the cry that we need foreign workers because
… multiple choice: “nursing shortage,” Americans are lazy (Vivek), Americans are not talented or smart enough (Musk), housing shortage (construction workers) . . .
I disagree….in the hospital I was associated with ALL nursing personnel were paid the same within the guidelines of education, tenure, etc. we had to recruit temporary nurses from the Philippines ( plus transport and house them ) at one point because of lack of American nurses during one the shortage cycles. Many hospitals have nurses unions that address your last sentence.
BTW, it’s not just nurses that move to another country for easier entrance…it’s doctors. I had a friend, a Scottish MD, who finally moved to Canada because he could get into the U.S. easier from there than from Scotland.
you had that situaiton because the GOVERNMENT is NOT INCENTIVIZING things that would help you.
instead they are fcking us.
Nursing and healthcare…another Visa boondoogle we have been told there aren’t enough Americans to do the jobs so we must bring in foreign/visa labor. You are correct Aggie, nursing shortage is because healthcare (which has become major corporations) won’t pay….we have been programed for 20 years when we hear Visa of anykind to hear “American’s won’t do the jobs” or “not enough American’s will do the job”. We need to stop pretending (as SD would say) and call it what it is. When you hear Visa of any type, it simply means cheap labor. Cheap UNAMERICAN labor. you are either American first, or not. We all now who is getting rich here. It isn’t the American worker.
Brooke Rollins is in luuuve with President Trump.
Get the elimination of birth right citizenship and then work visas and student visas etc. make sense. Currently it is too risky to let people in who will just get an anchor.
get a visa, get someone pregnant, or bring pregnant wife over
Not much has been written about the role of the USDA in switching the U.S. from family farms to Big Ag, and now selling the farmland to foreigners. This article in ZeroHedge is important reading on this subject: ” “We’ve Become Serfs On Our Own Land”: The USDA Trap, Foreign Land Sales, And The Collapse Of American Farming.”
THIS is what we should be talking about!
Yes Bill Gates and China are big purchasers of farmland.
The wrong person has Trumps eat on this
How do you drive up ag wages for Americans if you have this “work visa?’
you dont right now. you bridge the transition with this…
once the World Wars are squashed and trade is realigned to America First – then you can use our great minds to fix this problem
Does this mean the President is not going to be involved any longer with Ukraine? I hope he just walks away and leaves the mess started by Z to be cleaned up by Z and we never have to hear about him again.
I’d rather get rid of the visas used by Bill Gates to fire Americans and bring in cheap tech jobs. Most of these jobs would easily be filled by Americans. I’m not sure about agriculture, but hospitality? If we’re talking summer jobs, they should pay at a rate that American kids would do them just lie many people I knew in the 70s. They’d go work at a summer resort and back to school in September. Anyone remember “Dirty Dancing”? One of the staff there was on his way to medical school! Life used to be like that, but illegals are cheaper and you have far less responsibility, and you can push off the cost of their care to taxpayers! Time to fine those who employed illegals to the extent that they reimburse taxpayers for the medicaid and “charity care”. Feet to the fire time.
Over the past 15 years or so in the southern New Jersey seashore communities, I have noticed that a large percentage of certain seasonal hospitality employees (such as bartenders, wait staff, ride operators on the amusement piers etc.) were high school and college – age people from eastern Europe (Russian, Ukrainian, Slovak, Czech, Polish and so on). Most of the Spanish – speaking people are working in housekeeping or landscaping or they are running businesses such as small restaurants. Hoteliers/innkeepers are predominently Anglo.
in the late 70’s I was on an AFB in Northern Maine, and in October everything stopped so that the potato harvest could be done,,,,Canucks were allowed to come over the border to work, and I went into the potato fields to earn extra money…75cents per 300 lb barrel was what was paid, the tractor dug up the potatoes, you picked them up and put them in the basket between your legs that held 30 lbs, that meant 10 trips to the barrel, and a flatbed with a winch came by and picked them up, the ticket with your number on it was how you were paid,,,,can you imagine a basement dweller doing that nowadays? BTW, this stoop labor caused me to lose twins
and as an aside, I picked from 430am to 730pm, with a half hour break, and did 75 barrels a day
Like in twin children?
Well….I hope it was not “like in twin” elephants or moose!
But my concern is will this not be perceived as favoritism? Why not develop a plan for some of the other illegal aliens who are working and abiding by laws?
Time to shut down all work related visa programs. Then there’s no risk of favoritism, no ever expanding groups of foreigners and industries to be given a carve-out.
We need to institute favoritism for Americans. That would be refresshing to see.
.
.
in the 2023-2024 year (Aug 2024 Labor Report)
——————————————————-
.
.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/new-jobs-report-shows-stunning-decline-for-native-born-americans-opposite-for-foreign-born-workers/ar-AA1q82Az
Bottom line every one of us should take the journey of growing as many things that we eat as we possibly can. The agricultural conglomerates are not our friends in any way, shape or form.
As we blaze trails into the 21st Century, we must reexamine our antiquated approach to farming that rely on toxins and slave labor that invariably brings Cartel activity into our farming areas.
The farmers/ big ag such as ADM & Conagra do not want to mechanize. Private profit at public cost , for hospitals, traffic , schools, trash & enviro all paid for by the taxpayer.
UC Davis had a department for mechanization of agriculture years ago. It was shut down because of pressure from big farmers in krazy kali.
Caesar Chavez was dead set against migrant labor , legal or illegal. That led ronhis promonence in the UFW union.
There are over 70 different types of visas. Over a million green cards per years.
The 11 million illegals figure is still bandied about. Not a peep about the optimum end goal of total US population.
The US business model pushed by all the MBA geniuses is only to increase via market/population growth.
And of course there is the ethanol scam; by which consumers are stiffed via higher food prices; higher taxes to subsidize ethanol; worse gas mileage & ag state sentaors holding national well being hostage to their big ag donors.
We are not just an economy; we are a nation. Well, we were.
I just watched the Rubio, Hassett and Trump videos after Iowa rally, back-to-back in that order. Rubio has aged 5 years in the past six months. Hassett has aged 15 years in the past six months and looks dog-tired. DJT looks the same as he did six months ago and exudes the same energy. How does he do it!?!
I am so grateful for President Trump and the incredible team he has built to execute his vision. Those men and women are literally giving everything they have to the president and the country.
Ok. A think outside the box when it comes to agriculture and similar. And incorporate the presidential god to democrats…….FDR. Create a sort of Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) of agriculture and have young folks work a couple years or something in the agriculture and similar industries (livestock). Invest in local dormitories. Have classes of basic life skills, money management, etc. When whiners cry, say it’s the sake thing as FDR. Either FDR was great or he wasn’t.
I guess probably too many regulations and too many vacuous years of laziness. I would not mind taxes that go to these sorts of productive things. Maybe 2-3 years service gets paid for vocational and technical schools, NOT big city indoctrination centers.
Just blathering ideas here.
don’t be shy.
they encouraged us not to share our thoughts, because we were to smart.
I like your idea
My Dad was in the CCC camp in Stone County, Ark from 1937-1939. They were required to do PT (physical training) every morning before work, had an extensive library and encouraged education (which my Dad took advantage of. They were paid 30 dollars a month and had to send 25 of that home. He told me that the CCC got him ready for WW2, and Army Basic Training was a breeze.
I recall my paternal grandfather relating a few stories about him and his twin brother spending time in a CCC camp. Neither served in WW2 because they were both only 5′ 5″ – 5′ 6″ plus he worked in a cement plant which I guess was considered a vital wartime industry.
just keep in mind PDJT is in a war of realigning trade via military possible actions.
so this give in with whatever visa it is, could be just to focus on other things now.
smash up BIG AG monopolies.
incentivize farming (tech, money, organizations, non-profits, whatever)
create CO-OPs Shared Branches created of private farms (pop up grocery stores via them supplying it)
create memberships.
do Prison Reform – offset time with good labor behavior. (this is the only reasonable slave labor, not forcing illegals to endure whatever it involves in this labor
It seems we should also incentivize enclosed hydroponic farming. Almost no weeds and insects to pick/spray and it takes up less acreage due to vertical stacking systems.
Also, I heard at least a decade ago that Europe was way ahead of us in developing advanced farm machinery in large part because they did not have such a ready supply of slave labor as in the U.S.
Plenty of microplastics and “forever chemicals” involved with that unfortunately.
When the media says the fake war in Ukraine is officially ended, it will mark the first time in history a fake war ended. Kind of like the way the fake War on COVID ended.
Here is food for thought that has not been discussed regarding the immigrant seasonal farm labor issue.
AI Overview: Skin pigmentation, primarily determined by melanin production, directly influences skin color and susceptibility to sunburns. Melanin, a pigment produced by melanocytes, protects skin from the sun’s harmful UV rays. Individuals with darker skin tones, due to higher melanin production, are naturally more resistant to sunburns, while those with lighter skin tones are more prone to sunburn. Sun exposure can cause increased melanin production, leading to tanning, or, in some cases, uneven skin tone and sunspots.
Sunburns and Skin Pigmentation:
Ponder this. If you are a believer and know the story of the Tower of Babel, God dispersed tribes of people.
Fast forward and look at a world map with the equator line. Africa has the equator. Native Africans have extreme pigmentation resulting in deep black skin. I’ve seen it in Kenya. They can better tolerate the intense equator sun.
The equator goes through So. America. Native tribes are people of light color, more skin pigmentation than Africans but less than Caucasians. Same for people in the Caribbean.
The equator goes through Indonesia. I’ve been to many countries there. Natives have more pigmentation than Caucasians but less than Africans. When in Bali walking down a street with my guide, an aged native man rubbed his hand over my arm. The guide was appalled and said he wanted to see what my skin felt like. It happened so quickly and it was harmless, but I never forgot the action. It reflected the difference in skins.
Mankind made skin pigmentation racist. We screw things up. In God’s plan, the level of skin pigmentation determined where a native tribe would live in proximity to the equator.
Natives with low skin pigmentation ended up in Europe, Asia, China, Russia, etc. and ultimately USA.
My generalized premise is based on pre-mass immigration which Merkel started in EU and that contagion started worldwide.
I believe God is sovereign and dispersed the tribes in Babel to ultimately end up in the world I described and it isn’t by accident what skin types were close or far away from the equator. It was by Divine Design.
So what skin types are better suited for outdoor hot-climate jobs throughout history, such as building pyramids, agricultural tasks in Africa, etc. to working farmlands in South Florida, etc.?
It is a scientific fact that darker pigmented skins better tolerate the sun than lighter pigmented skins.
Could, unknowingly, Caucasians NOT gravitate seasonal farm labor jobs because they aren’t best suited for the job due to low sun tolerance and the jobs ultimately were deemed ‘beneath’ them?
If you read this far, you can finish this thought process. Mankind screws things up. Hopefully, the OBBB will bring better work conditions for the seasonal immigrant farm workers. It’s a productive workforce we need.
After reading all the comments it affirms my previous concerns. All the commenters have valid and true concerns from both sides of the issue. No one here believes allowing illegal labor is a good thing. No one here believes allowing a visa system to be abused by replacing American workers with visa workers is a good thing. The goal is to stop all illegal labor and all visa abuses, end government subsidies to multi national corporations to make it easier for smaller business to compete. Cultural change emphasizing good management, law and order, ethics, hard work and personal responsibility are all needed. This is an achievable goal but it won’t be easy and it won’t happen overnight. If the goal is no more illegal labor then do it but be strategic and anticipate the problems and do it in a way that moves forward at a pace that consumers and businesses can adjust to and comply with.
The BBB was supposed to fund mass-deportations. Not seeing those, but instead a curious emphasis on a new visa program to perpetuate -legal- human trafficking for menial labor.
Its the 21st century. There are other options (video link). Why the emphasis on perpetuating menial labor?
Secretary Rollins must break the stranglehold on seeds that a couple of companies have a monopoly on.
Well now, they do have a stranglehold on certain modern F1 hybrid seeds, but there’s a huge world of OP(open pollinated) seeds still available from 100’s of thousands of us that still save seeds and trade, share, and offer to the public world wide.
There are ever more “seed savers” and ‘back yard breeders’ across the world that preserve OP varieties and purposely cross pollinate dependable old OP lines (or old lines with new hybrids) of fruit, grains, vegetables, and herbs to develop new OP varieties and make them available to fellow gardeners. Matter of fact, we now introduce far more OP varieties than Big AG does or can produce of F1 hybrids!
And we also save ‘true seeds’ of many older lines of OP (or what many people refer to as ‘heirloom’) varieties. I’ve got a tomato variety that has been in my family for over 110 years and we’ve kept it true by always bagging blossoms so the seeds won’t be crossed with another tomato variety.
I’ve also used that variety to cross with other varieties to make new OP creations. Takes me (and helpful gardening friends)8-10 years of trialing to select the best traits and stabilize before offering/sharing. I have lots of growing/trialing partners in 32 states and 21 countries that help me and I help them in their tomato, pepper, herb, lettuce, and etc breeding efforts.
Do you realize that there are over 20,000 OP tomato varieties and over 4,700 OP pepper varieties?
All that to say that Big AG can not ever totally monopolize seeds! Seek out local, regional, national, international and online gardening groups and sites and jump in to gardening, saving seeds, preserving our many varieties, creating more varieties, and of course sharing our gardening heritage, knowledge, and seeds!
Grow It Forward!
I agree with JoeS approach. Bring it into the sunlight. Have people here willingly to work and not illegally which often means they cannot be taken advantage of.
Yes, it MAY lower costs to our social nets (yet to be seen—and very hard to cut—just look at the dems screaming now). Prices may go up but if we do get savings the social net programs, it’ll be well worth it.
many people have mentioned paying a “livable wage.” Let’s not get caught in that trap. It’s the equivalent of “fair share” talk. The people doing those jobs should get paid what the market bears for those jobs.
Livable wage is nebulous and what it means to you is different than me. Plenty of families the children worked and helped pay for the family expenses—which would indicate that the father and/or mother were NOT getting paid “livable wages.” But yet, the family made it work.
Now, it seems, everyone thinks that EVERY job, no made what it is, should be paid a wage where that person can live on their own, in their own apartment, and afford to have every luxury afforded to anyone.
Our poor have cell phones, cars, new clothes, etc. maybe a phone is necessary, but an iPhone isn’t.
Last, our labor participation rate is at 62.3% some of the lowest in decades. There are PLENTY of people that can get back to work and fill these jobs.
This has nothing to do with MAGA and everything about keeping profit margins high for uber wealthy. Remove these programs and the price of blue colar work goes sky high – as it should. And all of those higher wages stay here in the USA and spent locally. I do not care about the profit margins of wealthy resort owners or farmers.
Damn Straight, AJ
That is so simplistic.
It’s like the saying, Tax the rich to feed the poor till there are no rich no more.
It Sounds good on a bumper sticker but doesn’t really work like that in real life.
No, it seems Mr. Jackson is against corporate welfare.
Alvin Lee and Ten Years After.
This is a Mistake and President Trump needs to hear this loud and clear
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2025/07/what-trump-says-hes-working-legislation-protect-illegal/
Oh sheesh! It must be how Moses felt.
Trump performs miracles to secure the border, stop trillion dollar slave trafficking destroying that’s our legal system and communities, deports tens of millions of criminals, works to decrease remittances, etc. , etc. …..
Only to have them whine and moan that he’s going to do a carve out for a niche group of people who are not a burden on the system.
Sheesh.
Trump is a dynamo! Did you notice how the people around him were beaming?
Sundance, I would be glad to hear your thoughts on what President Trump said in Iowa about amnesty for illegal aliens working on farms and in hotels. I see people now saying this is just improving H2A visas, but the President didn’t put it like that. And I would particularly welcome your thoughts about him saying that people who don’t like the idea are “radical right.” That astonished me. He just called most Treepers and most of his MAGA supporters the same name that European elites and the mainstream media use for us. Do you think Secretary Rollins put him up to that? I have to say, at this point I feel personally betrayed and insulted.
All I know is if Pops hadn’t made me work out on potato fields and in the hospitality industry in SE Idaho growing up, I would probably not be a 1 time (let alone 3 time) Trump voter say nothing of reading CTH at 46.
I’m glad I didn’t see President Trump ask Wiles about Legislation for Amnesty for illegals in Ag or Hospitality in that Iowa Rally in real time.
It would have wrecked my Fourth early, that I was already convincing myself was going to be a “good one” even though I am fighting degenerative disc disease something fierce.
The low pressure systems off Floridas coasts aren’t doing me any favors.
How are normal American kids supposed to learn a work ethic?
If it wasn’t for farm work, construction restaurant, bartending, nightclub and catering work I would have starved or been locked up permanently as a career criminal.
NO AMNESTY , NO AMNESTY, NO AMNESTY. Everyone leaves first , then comes back in on a short work visa.
remittances to the home nation are taxed at 10% to cover state and federal assistance.
NO AMNESTY.