r/LeopardsAteMyFarm • u/Conscious-Quarter423 • 6h ago

so MAGA farmers chased off immigrant farmworkers because Trump said they were taking American jobs, now they can’t find anyone to pick their crops. Funny how the pick-yourselves-up-by-the-bootstraps crowd suddenly needs someone else to do the work

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u/karebearjedi 6h ago

More than a few maga farmers fully believed that the government would replace the deported workers with free prison labor. Cue shocked pikachu face when it didn't happen and they had no back up plans 

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u/NoHippi3chic 6h ago

I think they want to lease them out of the holding facilities they just haven't figured out how to do it yet. Why train new work when detained migrant right here? I read somewhere about all the warehouses they've been snapping up in rural areas. Would not surprise me one bit for the spin to say that the detained people have to earn their keep.

I actually met a woman around 2015 who was a child when she lived with her family in a Russian work camp. The Germans weren't the only ones gleefully rounding peasants up and putting them to work. She was German but she said their were Slavic people there as well.

Brief interaction while I rang up her usual amount of stamps, the only time she ever spoke to me and it was bc she was telling me to drink aloe for my stomach bc that what they did in the camp.

She was right.

She was so old, it was incredible to hear that from her own history.

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u/USSMarauder 6h ago

14 years ago

To forgo a repeat of last year, when labor shortages triggered an estimated $140 million in agricultural losses, as crops rotted in the fields, officials in Georgia are now dispatching prisoners to the state’s farms to help harvest fruit and vegetables.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/realspin/2012/05/17/the-law-of-unintended-consequences-georgias-immigration-law-backfires/

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u/Equal_Refuse_4591 3h ago

They never learn because they are all rabidly anti-intellectual

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u/Titfortat101 5h ago

They actually tested this in Georgia and the prisoners quit doing a massive walk off, before it hit the afternoon.

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u/ColoradoNative719 4h ago

Or they expected urban black Americans to do the labor…

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u/RustyKn1ght 3h ago

While it would be in theory possible, in pratice not so much. Putting aside the historical baggage of forcing people in chains to work, economical impact could be far devastating in the long run by undercutting the broader labor market and traps the entire industry to exploit vulnerable population that cannot quit or unionize or even demand better working conditions or safety.

Then there is that inmates aren't usually physically cut out to work 10-hours per day in high heat. And where has been tried, the prisoners have been very prone to what is called "malicious compliance", working on their own pace causing crops to rot. They've also outright quit after few hours, telling that they'd rather solitary confinement over this.

Also, it isn't always cheaper to use prison labor. There's still the fact that these are convicts who have all the motivations in the world to try to make run for it, so you need corrections officers on site or other kind of security personel to maintain watch and transportation of that many inmates as well. That causes other costs that can easily cancel out any savings made in unpaid labor.

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u/FeliusSeptimus 3h ago

More than a few maga farmers fully believed that the government would replace the deported workers with free prison labor.

Dumbasses. The labor wouldn't be free for them, they'd be paying more for lower quality work and the people who control the prisoner labor would be getting the money. Then when they can't afford to stay in business any longer the people who control the prisoner labor would buy the farm.

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u/Homeskillet1376 3h ago

I have proposed a "Citizenship Swap" scenario in discussions with my Maga "friends" that would be an immigrant family with no criminal history for an American convicted of a violent or sex crime felony. If you they argue against it, it's really fun to see them explain why. Maybe if only a person raising a family and trying to make a life had only been born 20 more miles north in that town where that guy shot up a school grew up...just tough luck I guess.

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u/kck93 11m ago

One small clarification…MAGA farmers believed the government would replace the farm workers with Hillary Clinton and Nancy Pelosi.