Do you think current policy changes for non-immgrant visas are beneficial to US citizens or otherwise?

Crops are being left in the fields because the farmers can’t get aliens (legal and illegal). It will hit the bottom line because it is reducing revenue for the farmers, they have already spent money for seed, fertilizer and irrigation.

What @Tropical_Willie said about agriculture plus we are falling behind in the tech and other sectors because we cannot recruit top foreign professionals. Very few Democrats or progressives are advocating for completely open borders but the policies of the current administration toward immigrants, asylums seekers and foreign professionals are definitely making the USA more backwards and it will harm us economically in the long run.

Probably, the truth lies somewhere in the middle. I think if there was some sort of creative marketing for luring farm workers during the summer and early fall harvests we could be employing more Americans on farms. Summer jobs for high school and college students I think could be successful, but this bullshit of moving the school year far from what the agriculture schedule is, is a big problem. Some states have gone back to being closer to the ag schedule, but mostly for tourism reasons.

Some states have more all around farming, that’s a different story.

We definitely should be giving some work visas out for the farms though. Let people be legal, it’s better for them and for us.

Think about it…the US was built on immigrants coming across its open borders to work & live here. Even the so-called “original population”...aka American Indians were NOT originally born within the borders of the USA!!! So, in my opinion, there are NO true, full-blooded American citizens!!! Does that mean that we ALL should be deported back to our country of origin??? I, for one, would have NO clue of which country to go back to as my family is Irish, English, German, & Cherokee Indian. I know NOTHING of my Irtish side of the family because they go far back enough that I don’t even know their names. Same with my English & German ancestors. According to Trump, I don’t even have enough Cherokee blood in me to claim the US as my home; so, WTF do I try to go???

To get into your Q, I see this as REMOVING the people who are WILLING to do the NASTY jobs that NOBODY else wants to do!!! Look back through history…

The white man comes to this country to get away from being persecuted. Those with wealth USED those without wealth to do THEIR WORK for them. As time goes on, the poor whites doing the work got tired of being abused by their masters/employers & citizens of other countries came here to fill in for those NOT willing to be used and/or abused. At one point it was the Chinese who were willing to do the grunt work that nobody else was willing to do. What did those NOT willing to do the work do??? They complained that the Chinese were taking the jobs out from under them; but, they did NOT return to the those jobs once they ran off the Chinese who were WILLING to work!!! Same thing happened when the Irish came over & were WILLING to do the work that nobody else wanted to do!!! The lazy, rich elite even sailed to Africa to bring back people to do the jobs that NOBODY else would do!!! Once the blacks became tired of being used & abused, the Mexican population started coming across the border to fill in on the farms. They were paid very little…just given a roof over their heads & a free meal at night. From there they saw the potential to have a better life for their family & began wanting to remain so their family didn’t have to go hungry.

In my opinion, this country has been BUILT on the backs of those willing to work hard for very little in return & we have continued to GROW!!! I recently had my house & garage roofed due to storm damage. The rich white owner came out to give me an estimate. I was eventually given TWO estimates… ONE was for the job being done by his “American Citizen” crew. It was for $6,000 & would take 3 days to complete. They would arrive no later than 8:00am & would work until 10:00am at which time it would be too hot to work for the rest of the day. My other option was for his “Mexican” crew to do the job & it would cost me $2,800. They would arrive at 9:00am & depart around 1:00pm & the job would be COMPLETED when they clocked off for the day. Due to my financial constraints, I accepted the quote from the “Mexican” crew. They arrived at 8:30am working steady until 11:00 where they all went over to sit under my pecan tree to have their lunch. At noon, they all went straight back up on the roof & worked until 2:30. At that point in time, everything had been completed & the owner drove by to give the leader of the group $300 for their day’s pay. There were 4 of them & I didn’t see how the $300 was split between them.

My question is…WHO is going to do the dirty work once we run off all the immigrants who are WILLING to work??? We have become a “spoiled” society & NOBODY wants to appear to be inferior by doing the “grunt work”!!! Now everybody wants to be a “boss” & NOBODY wants to be a “worker”. With NO “workers”, I can see the economy going down hill FAST!!!

Of the people I know who lost their jobs when the job market was at its worst, NOT one would take a job they considered beneath them to do. They don’t want to work as a plumber, construction worker, shift worker at McDonalds, etc. They won’t even consider working in the orchards nor the fields. Then they complain that the immigrants are taking all the jobs right out from under them when they wouldn’t even take the jobs when available!!!

@JLeslie Creative ways to hire aliens with Trump threatening them, dream on!
And college kids are going to work in the fields if they know they need experience to get a job after graduating. EDITED
I live in a city with a long history of agriculture; sweet potatoes, tobacco and melons left in the fields because of Trump’s actions.

Want to buy a farm cheap? ? @JLeslie

Creative ways to lure Americans to work in the fields, not immigrants. The immigrants want to come.

Like I said, I’m all for being realistic and giving work permits, but I don’t think we do as much as we can to let our young people know there is farm work available who might need jobs.

What parent is going to send their kid to college & then encourage them to work the local fields even for ONE year??? Parents NO longer see it as an honor to have their kids join the military for ONE term!!!

Most parents now days can’t even get their kids out of the chair that’s in front of the video game to come to the table for a family meal!!!

@LadyMarissa Well, it could be high school also. I happened to go to Michigan State University, which still has a fantastic agricultural college. It’s not the only school that has an education in ag/farming.

Plus, some kids who won’t go to college might consider farming an option if they knew more about it. A coworker of my husband’s in TN had three children. She had a masters degree, the family was educated, and all of her children did well in school. One son, he worked on a farm one summer and loved it. He happened to live where farms were close by. He just knew that was what he wanted to do.

I think if we actively make farming respectable again more people will want to do it. This country spends a lot of time talking about the necessity of college degrees, and I directly being condescending of those who don’t have higher educations; that’s a problem. I also think the more Americans aren’t working in a certain industry, the more they don’t. It sounds racist, but the reality is, when an industry is taken over by another group it inhibits other groups, right or wrong. I am not talking about diverse groups, I’m talking about an almost total takeover. It’s a snowball effect.

If an America truly no one wants to do that work, then we must give out working papers, but someone needs to ask the unemployed why they don’t consider working on farms. Why is it? Too hard? Too hot? No one is speaking English? Didn’t know the jobs existed? What is the reason? I think we all just guess and don’t find out why.

The jobs you are talking about @JLeslie don’t pay S#$%T and you may sleep on a wooden floor with no heat or A/C.
I’ve volunteered with groups to support migrant farm help for the last sixty years; it is not pretty.
And “pretty” is what you need to get mainstream college and high school kids to work on farms.

^^Well, their conditions should be better! Keeping them illegal means they have no protection or power. It’s terrible. Forget the kids in school idea, there are plenty of people in America not working who maybe would consider that type of work. Even if I’m wrong about that, it doesn’t dismiss my other pount that conditions for workers should be reasonable. I’m pretty sure you and I agree about that.

@JLeslie They aren’t willing to move every couple of weeks to the next crop to be harvested (you don’t understand).

Ok.

They once tried to get kids to work in the farmers fields. They couldn’t hack it and it was a huge failure. https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2018/07/31/634442195/when-the-u-s-government-tried-to-replace-migrant-farmworkers-with-high-schoolers

@Tropical If you care to educate us, I would love a thread on that.

@KNOWITALL Did you read my link from NPR? They tried to get US kids to do the work back in 1965. It was an unmitigated failure.

@Science I did not yet. I am interested in 60 years of firsthand experience that Willie has.

What about adults though? Is anyone trying to connect farm jobs for people who are unemployed? I don’t mean forcing anyone who isn’t interested in the work.

And, why are conditions so bad? That’s really awful. I assume some farms are better than others.

We need immigrants. The birth rate is starting to drop in the USA. Like a lot of other countries, people are choosing not to marry and not have kids or deciding to have children when they are older so they only have one.. Our elderly are living longer and retiring. You can’t support an aging nation on a few young people. There is also the American attitude of I’m too good for that job. No one wants the bottom level and hard jobs. To many princes and princesses in our country. They all want to be a reality tv star get get paid to be a drama queen.

@KNOWITALL The account from the NPR article IS a first hand account and experience of someone who was on a bus going to pick melons from a high school with all of his buddies.

That account is from 50 years ago. Young people did volunteer, they just were treated like crap. We shouldn’t be treating immigrants like crap. That’s what some of these farms get away with. They are treated almost like slaves, it’s wrong. The border states have 100 degree weather, but not Michigan. That article basically states you need people who are economically desperate to do the job. Meaning someone desperate enough that they will take the abuse.

It’s true that almost all developed countries need immigrants to do the lowest jobs on the totem pole, a reality Americans should understand and not be so anti-immigrant in their rhetoric. We also need people at every level. We’ve “imported” nurses and tech experts, and many others from other countries where we lacked the talent. My husband stayed in America after school on that type of work visa.

I do think being dependent on the younger population to support the older population is a horrible set up financially. The day someone figures out how to fix that and implements it is the day that a lot changes in a lot of countries. Hopefully, that coincides with a time of better economies around the world and less border considerations.

Robots will eventually be doing some of this work. There won’t be enough work for everyone in the future. It could be a wonderful time or an absolutely horrible one, depending on how it comes about. It’s scary, but could be exciting.

@JLeslie It was an organised program by the US Federal government to get US kids to pick the fruit and veg in the same conditions as the migrant workers, in stead of the migrant workers and it took place 50 years ago and was never attempted since. I think that speaks for itself.

Yes, we still are probably abusing the migrant workers. That’s pretty damn important to me. They should have air conditioning and reasonable work expectations just like we fought for in our factories years ago. America is busy criticizing labor practices in other countries, when possibly we have horrible conditions here. We need to Kay 10¢ more a pound for watermelons and give the people picking our fruits and vegetables decent conditions. I don’t care whether they are legal, illegal, Latin American, Asian, or American.

The government not trying something again means nothing. America quickly ditches ideas that don’t work well at first rather than trying to tweak or improve them. We came very close to ditching Obamacare altogether, rather than fixing it. Right now Obamacare has a lot of terrible things about it, but America will either throw healthcare to the wolves or keep what it has for now. Don’t think that America is always so smart about policy. We screw things up all the time.

Sorry, @JLeslie My point about them ditching plans on having students do the work was that, to get the students to stay, the farmers were going to have to spend money on wages, working conditions and accommodation. It was just too hard and the horrible status quo continued. I think that is shameful.

My point is no one should be abused.

Exactly, and they can’t feign ignorance, because they knew what conditions looked like 50 years ago and they just turned a blind eye.

^^Who? Why do you keep talking about 50 years ago? I’m concerned about now. 50 years ago factory conditions were horrendous in many instances too. Then unions got stronger. OSHA became more involved. Things changed.

Fine, everything is great now… because, OSHA.
And history means nothing,,, ever. I think you’re not seeing the point. But that’s OK… we all see things differently.