File this one under “This is what you voted for, Donald Trump supporters”:
Research by the Farm Bureau suggests that the federal immigration policy Trump is promoting could result in a massive farm labor shortage across the country, causing domestic fruit output to plunge anywhere from 30 to 61 percent and vegetable production to fall by 15 to 31 percent. Industrial-scale livestock operations and slaughterhouses also rely heavily on immigrants, so meat production could tumble by as much as 27 percent. As a result, the group concludes, US eaters are looking at food price hikes of 5 to 6 percent. That might not sound like much, but it’s sure to squeeze families on a tight budget. So Trump’s efforts to save us from “bad hombres” is bad news for farms—and for Americans who are just trying to put dinner on the table.
According to the American Farm Bureau Federation, up to 2.2 million farm workers are needed across the country for harvesting, with at least half of these immigrant workers lacking any legal status. It’s backbreaking work that even Trump’s own family admits U.S.-born Americans just don’t want to do. When Eric Trump’s winery put out a call for workers, not one U.S.-born person was among the 13 applicants.
Trump Vineyard Estates, better known as Trump Winery, has asked to bring in 29 workers this season through the federal H-2A visa program, The Daily Progress reported.
The Charlottesville-area winery is owned by Eric Trump, whose father has called on businesses to hire Americans.
The H-2A program enables agricultural employers who anticipate a shortage of domestic workers to bring foreign workers to the U.S. to perform agricultural labor or other temporary or seasonal services. To apply, employers say they’ve been unable to find American citizens to fill the jobs. At least three other local vineyards also applied to hire foreign workers.
“It’s difficult to find people,” said Libby Whitley, an attorney who has worked with employers, including Trump Winery.
Now with Trump’s deportation force kicking off, farmers are panicking over possibly losing much of their work force. Many of these farmers, particularly in California, voted for Trump under the impression he’d be better for their taxes. Now they’re finally realizing that when he descended those escalators at Trump Tower and said that all 11 million undocumented immigrants in the U.S. had to go, he meant their workers too:
Five years ago, when Santa Ynez Valley grower Cindy Douglas put a call out for farmworkers on Spanish radio, she got flooded. Not anymore. Now, farmers might have a crew of five one day, and a crew of 20 the next.
It’s not like there weren’t warning signs. Here’s what happened when Georgia and Jefferson Beauregard Sessions III’s home state of Alabama enacted anti-immigrant legislation:
Just after taking office that winter, Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal signed a bill that, he vowed, would “crack down on the influx of illegal immigrants into our state.” Known in civil-liberties circles as Georgia’s racial-profiling law, House Bill 87 encouraged local police officers to check the immigration status of anyone suspected of violating any regulation, including traffic rules, and imposed harsh penalties on anyone caught “harboring an illegal alien.” The governor probably didn’t intend for his signature immigration law to cost his state’s farm sector loads of cash. But his timing couldn’t have been worse. A shortfall of 11,000 workers—representing about 85 percent of peak employment—caused $75 million in crop losses that spring alone, with a total hit to the state economy of $103.6 million that season, according to a study by the University of Georgia. Neighboring Alabama passed an even more draconian law later that year, spurring its immigrant farmworkers to exit en masse and costing the state up to 6 percent of its gross domestic product.
For too long folks have been accustomed to cheap products while turning a blind eye to the abuses faced by farm workers. What we should be doing is acknowledging their importance by enacting pro-immigrant legislation—like this bill recently introduced by Democrats—that would protect their rights and allow them to apply for legal status, but instead Trump seems intent on turbo-boosting the failed actions of Georgia and Alabama. And, it’ll be poor families hurting financially as other families get torn apart.