Are illegal immigrants the next best thing to slaves?

[msc545]

We all know that the US has a long history of using slaves to boost profits, and in fact the Civil War was actually fought over the right to own slaves. Now that we mostly don't have slaves (other than prisoners), illegal immigrants have taken over that role. If you are a farmer or a person who grows crops that need to be picked, you can employ illegal immigrants for a small fraction of the actual legal wage. Even if you are caught and your workers are all deported, nothing will happen to you, and you can easily hire new workers.

I think this is why MAGA seems kind of ambivalent about deporting immigrants - on the one hand MAGA are all racist so they hate anyone who is not white, but on the other hand the growers love the idea of cheap slave labor - and the growers are all MAGA too. So a proposed solution is to just *temporarily* let the immigrant / slaves into the country at harvest time, and then when the harvest is over ship them back to their country. Except this would all be clumsy and expensive which sort of defeats the purpose. Do you see the problem here?

The purpose, is, like always, PROFIT.

[lightbulb27]

Yes, USA maintains a level of wealth on the back of cheap labor including migrants. But that would be legal. Illegal ones... um... they got no work out of the recent batch going to NY and Chicago costing billions. That was during Biden admin, they had power to get them cleared and get jobs... vast majority did not get their asylum, so even Biden sent them back. Biden sent back more than Trump... Trumps just hard on the border, turning the new ones back.

So yes. It isn't as good as having a "printing press" to confiscate from everyone globally, but it helps keep costs down. If they didn't do that... farmers would have to compete with cheap labor rates in mexico and chile and such... and they couldn't sell at price.

It needs to be legal whatever it is so we know the people, they have some protections so are not enslaved (some have been I hear), abused, have medical treatment available (negotiate as a body or union).

These people are so desperate given the pathetic state of their countries, they will do it and risk it all to come to USA and work and send the $ home.

Another version of this is cruise ships, although seems like the workers there are content, but they are in contracts for 8 months at sea, often resign. At least they can make $.

It really sucks in life depending where you were born. it's luck of the draw based upon place born, family.

What is fair then for migrants? I'm sure that could be argued.

Note: I once picked corn weeds and strawberries for a job. I've done that hard work for pennies. My wife used to sell pieces of scrap she'd find. I admire these peoples work and frankly are often better than the worn out or broken people in USA.

[MisterWack]

I wouldn’t call it ‘slavery’, though I will say immigration helps with the economy.

I’ve said this before the election, now I will repeat myself in the boat we are in: Immigrants boost the economy because Average Americans go to college.

With the skills you obtain in college, it allows you a high-skilled labor like education, medical field, engineering, animation, dentistry, pharmacist, lawyer, English major, etc.

When you are an immigrant (undocumented or documented), you represent the low-skilled workforce which not many ‘Natural Born Americans’ want due to extremely low wages, no worker benefits, and subpar working conditions. This is construction, plowing fields, operating machinery, and more which will always have a surplus of jobs to ‘take’ since it never ends & only is growing as the years go by.

Immigrants aren’t coming to take our jobs, they are here for their American Dream. The American Dream that was built by a nation of immigrants: German, French, Italian, Irish, Asian, Indians, Mexican all got shit thrown at them during their immigration wave to this country if you look inside the very history books certain people want banned. That is why everyone has their own sub-community like Chinatown. Everyone deserves a shot at the American Dream or else we aren’t American anymore.

[dustybiker2]

The thing is it has nothing to do with immigrants. They were simply a pawn topic to gain votes. It's the hate that is a solid reality now so the deports are the smoke and mirrors to keep this voters soothed. Facts show Biden deported more monthly than Trump has in his first month.

[Notherndude84]

They provide cheap labour and shady business owners can treat them like garbage. Yet they’re so hypocritical they trash talk them and call for deportation.

[dustybiker2]

@Notherndude84 Insecure adults, in mass, created a party of their own.

[Anonymous]

Cheap labour yes. But like slaves it's a major problem for regular citizen workers because wages are lowered. This was the problem are Lincoln's father faced and it was a major problem in Roman Italy

[msc545]

It would be a worse problem indeed, except for one important fact: White people will not do those jobs as evidenced by the fact that even white homeless people on the verge of starvation refuse those jobs. If they didn't the growers might not care so much, but they do, actually, since without the illegal immigrants they literally have no workforce and the crops rot. I have seen this occasionally driving through the California Central Valley as a result of labor disputes when workers refused to work on certain farms...

[Opinion Owner]

White people don't want those jobs because they don't pay. White people work a lot of shitty jobs because they do pay.
Do you think working on an oil rig or as a lumberjack or on a construction is a nice job that White people want? Why do you think they do it? If the money wasn't there they wouldn't.
Why do you think certain farms had labor disputes? Could it be to do with the pay being too little and conditions too harsh?
I'm not arguing the morality of it or the economics, just stating the facts.

[msc545]

Those jobs pay the legal rate to white people, same as other low-end jobs that white people often do. I speculate that it is *because* those agricultural jobs are most often done by illegal hispanic immigrants that white men feel demeaned if they do them, and that is why they don't. It is not because of the pay. Farms mostly have labor disputes between the labor contractor (the legal-but not-white guy who is the organizer and boss of the workers), and the grower. Labor contractors provide groups of illegal workers to growers for a price, and that price is often a matter of contention, and it sometimes leads to no workers at all - because the contractor and the grower cannot agree on a price.

[Opinion Owner]

White men feel deamened by jobs that pay minimum wage. A Mexican can earn minimum wage, save up for a few years and return to Mexico and buy a good house etc and live like a king. No white American man is starting a family making minimum wage or getting a wife or buying a house. Minimum wage in california is $16.50, a basic laborer hanging sheet rock can get $20-30 an hour.

[msc545]

Okay so we've established that white men will not do that work and the only people that will do the work for illegal immigrants who can be paid much less than white men. Less in fact than the legal prevailing wage.

[msc545]

So deporting all the illegal immigrants doesn't really solve the problem because there's nobody else left to do the work which actually turns out to be fairly important. Conservatives like to say that if we deport all the illegal immigrants then the jobs will be open to white men. They will be open to white men but the white man won't take them.

[Opinion Owner]

Pay people the right wage and they will do the work. I worked as a picker a few times, it was hard work and I was making as much as I was as a waitress for much more work. When people talk about gender pay gaps, it exists only because men are more willing to work hard jobs for longer hours than most women.

[msc545]

People are not interested in paying the "right wage" - they are interested in getting the "right profit," which is the highest one, and they pay the lowest wage they can get away with. Welcome to Capitalism, where greed is a feature, not a bug.

[Opinion Owner]

Yes it's still capitalism. You want the work done you gotta pay the right wage. Slavery for instance was holding back the south economically.

[msc545]

If slavery was holding back the South, why did they fight so hard to keep it?

[Opinion Owner]

The south was starting to look like Europe or Azncient Roman italy. You know with the plantation owners as the new nobility. Their wealth was based on free labor and owning all the land while the plebs owned nothing and were basically scraping by. The plebs fought for loyalty to their state and for state rights which after the war was upheld. The plantation owners fought for their money and power.

[msc545]

@Opinion owner Please expand on the meaning of "The plebs fought for loyalty to their state and for state rights which after the war was upheld."

I don't understand what this means or how it is relevant or how it supports your contention that "Slavery was holding back the South economically".

[Opinion Owner]

You asked why the southerners fought so hard for slavery and I answered they didn't. They fought for their individual states. It's relevant because it answers your question.

[msc545]

What wer they trying to accomplish for their individual states?

[Opinion Owner]

Much the same as the founding fathers. Freedom for self governance, but mostly there was a war on and that they should fight for their state and their people

[msc545]

Fight for them to own slaves. Got it.

[Opinion Owner]

You had to be wealthy to own slaves, owning slaves made you money. A lot of slaves were better off than whites in the confederacy.

[msc545]

And you know all this how exactly?

[Opinion Owner]

It's all history. Think about it. Slaves we're treated like cattle, well fed and looked after. While the poor whites were scratching a living half starved.

[msc545]

That does not invalidate anything I said. If there had been no slavery, there wouldn't have been a Civil War.

[Opinion Owner]

If there had been no slavery there probably would have been a civil war. The crux of the matter was were we going to have a United States of America versus a loose confederacy of states or just independent states. Naturally European powers would have preferred there be no United States.

[Pet68]

Unfortunately for the MAGA farmers, they still have to pay these workers a tiny amount of loose change, but I'm sure that if Musk gets his way then full-blown slavery will be reintroduced across the US, and they won't be paid a cent. They'll be told not to complain, and be grateful they have clothing on their back and a roof over their head.

[NathanDavis]

modern slavery still exists...

it is not gone

and yes, many of them are illegal immigrants as well

[msc545]

Yes, many illegal immigrants are pretty much slaves and unfortunately many prisoners are also slaves.

[OneViewpoint]

LOL, illegal immigrants ARE slaves in many cases. They just don't have "papers" these days. The racists have found a way to make them economic slaves. Now a certain group of White people have a group of people they can feel superior to again.

[Sevenpointfive]

it's not like my dad would buy me one anyway. he hates me. he treats his slaves better than me

[ProbablyClueless]

If MAGA loved the idea of cheap and slave labor, they would advocate for illegal immigration and globalist supply chains 😂😂😂

[msc545]

That is the contradiction...

[ProbablyClueless]

That's not a MAGA idea. It's not what they think.

[slatyb]

That seems about right. It's easy to abuse undocumented workers because the fear deportation if they complain.

[beefcakebradybatson]

Yes, to the MAGANs and other white supremacists.

[Pterodon]

We don’t want them here

[msc545]

No - YOU don't want them here.