The impact of President-elect Donald Trump's promise of mass deportation is already starting to show.
The California Farm Bureau says fears in the Central Valley have led to migrant farmworkers not showing up for work, which has virtually halted the area's citrus harvest. Agriculture leaders in the Bay Area are worried about something similar happening locally and what it could mean for citrus prices.
It’s the peak of citrus harvest season in Kern County right now, but the industry is taking a hit after immigration agents conducted several operations last week, targeting undocumented immigrants with criminal records.
The state farm bureau reports that action made some agriculture workers too afraid to show up for work.
"We are certainly very concerned about what is happening and how that is unfolding," Monterey County Farm Bureau Executive Director Norm Groot said.
The Monterey County Farm Bureau said it is keeping a close eye on the developments in the Central Valley. Harvest season in the Salinas Valley begins in late April.
The farm bureau said just the threat of deportation could be enough to deter many of the 55,000 migrant workers the valley needs to operate during harvest season.
"They’re not going to show up for work and that means crops will remain in the field and not be harvested and probably lost at that point," Groot said.
you'd think they *might* learn from history https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/oct/14/alabama-immigration-law-workers
ReplyDeletepreznit
they are stupid.....all other explanations involve malice; their only refuge is stupidity and and the attention span of drunken gerbils.
ReplyDeleteIf you’ll notice, California voters rejected a ballot measure this past November to remove “slavery and involuntary servitude as punishment for a crime” from their state constitution. In other words, they’re going to use unpaid prison labor to pick those crops. And, as is American tradition, they’re going to take a page from the south to fill prisons by making up bullshit “crimes” (e.g., being undocumented, not having your papers on you, being brown in public, etc.) and arresting racially- or ethnically-profiled people to recreate de facto slavery. Because someone always has to make a buck, private for-profit prisons will be the source of this unpaid labor. Mark my words.
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