I'm waiting to hear how Trump's immigration ban will affect crop harvests and cause a food shortage.

[Towlie]

Last edited Tue Apr 21, 2020, 03:08 PM - Edit history (1)

Any links yet?

Edit: Apparently it won't apply to farm workers.

[TreasonousBastard]

1. Not yet-- wait until he changes his mind again.

[Captain Zero]

2. My first reaction when he framed it as jobs

Was that this was his "Let them pick fruit" moment for the unemployed.

[Brother Buzz]

3. The orange anus' immigration executive order includes exceptions for migrant farmworkers.

Vines on his winery need to be worked.

[DBoon]

4. a lot of medical workers are immigrants

that too

[Proud Liberal Dem]

5. I'm a little unclear on this ban on immigrants

Are people still traveling in and out of the country right now with intent to immigrate? Is he shutting down processing of current immigrants within the US (those not stuck in detention centers)? What exactly is this about?

[enid602]

6. farmworkers

With 30% unemployment, finding farmworkers won't be too hard.

[not_the_one]

7. here is where I would normally say something snide, like "Americans don't DO farmwork"

but I realize it would be too crass and tacky... even though, as a whole, it is true. (so much for not saying it...)

I grew up in a poor southern family. We were truly poor white trash. We were unable to properly pronounce the word negro.

Dad had delusions of being a farmer. Corn, but primarily tobacco.

Summer was tobacco harvesting season. For six weeks the tobacco had to be cropped by hand, weekly. We could never get enough white teenagers to put together a full crew (4 croppers, 4 stringers - stringing the tobacco on sticks to cure in a tobacco barn, 2 handers per stringer, totaling 8 handers, totaling a crew of 16 people). Dad would hire entire black crews from neighboring towns, just so he could harvest the tobacco crop.

They did this all summer, for many farmers, sun up to sun down 6 days a week.

Cropping tobacco was REALLY hard. I tried it once. Barely made it a day. I was a teenager.

So I "drove the tractor" pulling the sled, for the croppers to put their arm fulls of tobacco in, and when full would take it to the barn for the handers and stringers to put on sticks to be loaded into the tobacco barn.

I was the only white boy in the field, sitting on the tractor, pulling it forward to stay apace with the croppers. My sister was the only white girl at the barn, usually "handing" the tobacco to a stringer. She could string, but nowhere near fast enough.

This, ESPECIALLY cropping, was serious, hard, physical labor.

I grew to have such respect for these incredibly hard working people. I sure as hell couldn't do it.

Now, very few would even consider it as an option.

We have become a spoiled and lazy people.

It is no wonder that we have to import someone willing to do our hard work, because we won't.