Let’s compare Trump in August of 2019 to today.
August 2019
Please recall ICE Arrests Hundreds in Mississippi Raids Targeting Immigrant Workers
In a coordinated sting, more than 600 agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement showed up at the sites with federal warrants that allowed them to search the premises. About 680 immigrants who were believed to be working without legal documentation were apprehended and taken away on buses.
Three poultry plants that are owned and operated by Peco Foods in three towns, and a fourth run by Koch Foods, in Morton, Miss., were among the facilities raided on Wednesday.
It’s Immigrants Who Pack Your Meat
The Atlantic reports It’s Immigrants Who Pack Your Meat.
The immigration raid last week at seven poultry plants in rural Mississippi was a perfect symbol of the Trump administration’s racism, lies, hypocrisy, and contempt for the poor. It was also a case study in how an industry with a long history of defying the law has managed to shift the blame and punishment onto workers.
Planned for more than a year, the raid involved at least 600 agents from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, helicopters, and a staging area at a local National Guard base. The agents carried handguns, wore black body armor, and led 680 immigrant workers—almost all Latino, many of them women—to waiting buses with their hands zip-tied behind their backs. One worker, an American citizen, was shot with a Taser for resisting arrest. Children gathered outside the poultry plants crying as their parents were taken away and sent to private prisons; other kids sat in classrooms and at day-care centers, unaware that their families were being torn apart. It was the first week of school.
What Happened?
Trump set up a sting by posting help wanted ads for meat packing plants. When people applied they were arrested, then deported, even separated from their kids.
Meatpacking Work Conditions
Meatpacking remains an unusually dangerous and unpleasant occupation, with an injury rate much higher than that of other manufacturing jobs. Poultry workers stand close to one another with sharp knives, repeating the same motion again and again more than 15,000 times in a single shift, slicing birds as they pass on conveyor belts every two seconds. A 2013 investigation by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health found that 42 percent of the workers at a poultry plant in South Carolina were suffering from carpal tunnel syndrome. The work is bloody, difficult, and full of potential harms.
April 2020
Suddenly we have a national emergency.
Covid-19 has shut meatpacking plants. Those plants are perfect breeding ground for the coronavirus.
Using a Korean War “Defense Protection Act” Trump Orders Meat Packing Plants to Stay Open
Four Questions
- OK, Trump can force the plants to stay “open”, but open for what?
- Can Trump send in qualified workers to run the plants?
- Can Trump force the existing workers to show up?
- If not, will Trump show up himself and do the work?
Two Bonus Questions
- Rather than thumping his chest and making demands on workers, wouldn’t a softer approach been better?
- How many workers will this piss off enough to cause them to vote Democratic?
All of a sudden we need workers.
Stability of the Global Food System Relies on Immigrants
Quartz reports Stability of the Global Food System Relies on Immigrants
The global food system as it operates today relies on immigrant labor to run smoothly, and the pandemic is emphasizing the risk of undervaluing that work.
At a Smithfield Foods-owned meatpacking plant in South Dakota, employees told Buzzfeed News that many of the plant’s 3,700 workers are immigrant workers. That plant was among the 17 that have so far closed since the middle of April, including plants operated by Tyson Foods, JBS USA, and National Beef Packing. Collectively, those shuttered plants supply the US with about 25% of its meat.
New Question Today
Q. Will Trump and ICE look away?
A: Of, course
Trump Gambles on Immigrant Workers
Politico reports Trump Gambles on Immigrant Workers
The Trump administration is still soliciting immigrants for specific jobs despite droves of Americans filing for unemployment.
It is easing requirements for immigrants to get jobs as farm workers, landscapers and crab pickers, aware that industries, including those that fill grocery store shelves, could be hurt if they couldn’t hire foreign employees.
And until facing criticism this week, it had been moving ahead with a 35,000-person increase in the number of seasonal workers in part for expected job openings at resorts and golf courses after the pandemic releases its grip on the economy.
“There’s still a need for these types of workers,” said one business industry representative in touch with the administration.
“These Types” vs “Those Types”
It’s now a national emergency to have more of “these types” of immigrant workers.
Of course, we have to keep Trump’s golf courses open.
Golf is a clearly a national emergency worthy of invoking the Korean War Defense Act.
That’s what makes resort workers part of “these types” as opposed to “those types“
Food Rotting in the Fields But Shortages in the Stores
Meanwhile, please note Food Rotting in the Fields But Shortages in the Stores.
Mish
No worries, if the wall has to be torn down, Mexico is going to pay for it.
Rising population only serves the business owners who’s profits demand constant growth. Regular working people benefit from a lower supply of labor raising the value of labor and giving them a bigger share of the pie. The Democrats claim to be working in favor of the working people, but they are really working on behalf of the Corporations and Illegal aliens. They are in fact, screwing real American workers.
Yeah, dude! Nothing beats dying out and going extinct…. That’s what all life aspires to….
We are going to need more immigrants long term.
U.S. Marriage Rate Plunges to Lowest Level on Record
The U.S. marriage rate fell 6% in 2018, with 6.5 new unions formed for every 1,000 people, according to a report by the National Center for Health Statistics. That was the lowest rate since the federal government began keeping data in 1867,
I just heard on NPR that marriage licenses were setting records in February/March. It seems that the pandemic has changed a lot of things.
I doubt that fewer marriages is as correlated with fewer offspring as are other factors.
Mish tries to paint one party different when they are just 2 heads of the same snake….its boring…the issue has been here for a long time….bring back the bracero program, it worked fine…..
The bracero program was designed to alleviate agricultural labor shortages during World War II. It lasted until the 1960s because big agriculture decided that it liked having an immigrant labor force it could exploit and victimize.
TL:DR – Try to pull your cranium out of your rectum. You don’t know what the hell you’re talking about.
actually much more than you sheep, it worked which is all we need….you pay for these leeches
The nation can get by with no immigrants right now while slowly re-opening, this kind of hyperbole is boring….its why I haven’t been here since CR days…
Trump has no issue with immigrants, its the illegal ones, from all over the world…..
the liberal left, hypocrites of the highest order seem to covet illegal aliens more than taking care of inner city youth, vets and seniors…I’ve offered everyone $50-$100 to show me a receipt for schooling, feeding housing, policing, legal hogwash and caring for them….not one has come up with a receipt……..so enough with the sheeple talk…get back to Mish talk….
Right now there is a pandemic, we need no more, if Obozo doesn’t change amnesty and deportation laws with executive order we could all save 300 billion a year….I would love to pull out the treasure chest of links and laws changed to accommodate 20 million broke, illiterate and non assimilating illegal alien families by czar 44
Just Dump the Trump..
I worked in a meat packing plant 40 years ago, so I have a bit of an idea what goes on in there. It was hard work then, and I’m sure it is hard work now, though it is probably more automated now. In my nine weeks before the plant closed, they hired an average of 2 people a day. Every couple of days one would come back from the first break, and about 1 a week would come back for the second day. Only two people hired after I was stayed a whole week, so 2 of 90 people.
Also, yes, the knives are sharp. There was not one person who worked there who had not cut themselves at least once, either before I was there, or while I was. I was the only one who didn’t take stitches, though I still have a 3/8 long scar near my belly button to remember it by. I barely felt the cut, but a lot of blood came out. Yes, we had protective gear, but your knife occasionally finds gaps in the gear. The guy next to me one day was struggling, and I tried his knife, and it was way too dull. I loaned him my spare, and set to sharpening his. Next thing I knew, he slit his wrist (between the plastic arm guard and the chain link glove), and blood was spurting everywhere. That was his last day on the job, and the last time I sharpened a knife for anyone else. (He was one of the two that had lasted a week).
Yes, the air in there is very cold, and very dry, perfect for spreading Coronavirus. It is kept just over freezing. You don’t wear a coat, other than a butcher frock, so you work hard to stay warm, that makes you breath deeply, which probably helps you get infected.
I’m sure that the turnover is still high. That poses a special problem at the moment not mentioned above. Unemployment is currently paying $600/week more than normal, and the requirement that you have to look for work is waived. I doubt these plants are getting any applicants at all.
Today’s doublespeak translation: essential worker = expendable worker.
Soup To Nutsy: “No 2-week decline in stats, plentiful PPE or abundant testing for you.”
Mish, we don’t “need immigrants” we need to set up a system that treats workers well. OF COURSE it will cost more for a package of chicken. I bet it’s less than a buck more per 2 lb package. I will happily pay a little more to know it wasn’t slave torture labor produced. Heartless robber barons will squawk. That’s where we really need govt help. Jeez, politicians really suck.
Brilliant! Let’s undercut wages for Americans, hire illegals, pay them shite and no benefits, so we can all save a few bucks on the products. We have met the enemy and he is the greedy, short-sighted, us
These aren’t minimum wage jobs. Most pay about $30,000 a year now. They are hard jobs, with a lot of turnover. If someone wants to work there, they can get hired on.
Raise the wages and charge more for the meat. Set the wages it to keep Americans working! Unfair to pay illegal immigrants such a low wage because why? Its worth it for them to be here? That system does not work. You can see it failing now.
I favor Open Borders.
Let’s abolish ICE.
Lets not, and say we did.
“Let’s abolish ICE”
Why not just abolish the US government entirely? It’s only good at killing people.
I thought there were millions of people eager to get back to work…I guess just not like that and there..
Not for 10 bucks an hour to gut chickens.
With the bonus $600 a week unemployment … nobody is going to be in a hurry to get back to work to make less money than being on unemployment.
$600? You mean $1000. The $600 is just the Federal bonus, they still get the regular State benefit too.
Raise the wages! Charge more for chicken, pork and beef! Raise the wages until you get Americans to do the work! Why are wages so low? There is your answer.
” Why are wages so low?”
Because 90% of the value add is pilfered off by financialization, in order to ensure worthless nothings incapable of doing work even remotely as productive as cutting chicken, can idly sit on their rear “making money off my home”, “my portfolio” and “my pension.” While cluelessly cheering for Dear Leader to “make my something go up!!” by stealing it from those who do something productive.
15,000 repeated motions per shift? How is this work not outsourced to the machines already?
Because chicken, pigs, cows all come in a variety of subtly different configurations–ala humans.
Just ask a surgeon about variations in human bodies…
The reason a lot of things can be automated is due to standardization. From container boxes, to even AD boxes. Machines are bad at subtlety.
And yet the Fed funded idiot army, can by now readily be duped into believing machines who can’t cut a chicken into 4 pieces, is somehow almost ready to serve as drivers during running gun battles through downtown Manhattan during non-covid lockdown rush hour…… Just by virtue of enough illiterate halfwits “investing” what The Fed stole for them into, like, companies, and like stuff…
That’s progressivism and financialization for you: Planes falling out of skies, overpriced cars sold at a loss crashing into walls, noone able to test for a virus for months on end, despite commies putting tests together in weeks, noone being able to mechanize slicing up a chicken…….
But hey, “we” can cheer for Dear Leader, and for ambulance chasers shaking down our neighbors, and sit on the couch while The Fed robs said neighbors to make enough people sufficiently desperate and homeless to overpay for our near worthless shacks. Yes, We Can!! That’s America in the Fed era. All of America in the Fed era.
A cut every couple seconds for the whole work-day? Yeah. That sort of thing is where current machine vision and learning innovations are right on point. It sure seems like a fun, fun project to do. Good odds of success, maybe. And, no rocket science needed, maybe.
That said, rolling such automation out to the bulk of factories must be a big job. Would not happen in a day.
Your prediction may be coming true:
You know Mish, you are pretty smart when it comes to economics but dumber that a rock when it comes to politics.
1st, these are not ” immigrants who were believed to be working without legal documentation” they were illegal immigrants who broke our immigration laws by illegally entering our country.
The global food system does not rely on immigrant labor to run smoothly, it relies on immigrant labor to maximize profit. Many of these employers conspire to break US laws to smuggle these workers.
How many workers will this piss off enough to cause them to vote Democratic?
The workers in question are all Democratic voters anyway including the illegals.
The Democratic party has sold out the American workers in favor of globalization, illegal immigration, and the replacement of the United States as the worlds economic leader in favor of China. The Democratic party is now the party of China and works in everything it does to further the Chinese agenda including flooding America with illegal immigrants.
I see you are up to date on the new talking points. China=China Virus=Covid-19=Democrats=the party of China=Flooding America with Illegals=…. Nice one.
“The Democratic party has sold out the American workers in favor of globalization, illegal immigration, and the replacement of the United States as the worlds economic leader in favor of China. The Democratic party is now the party of China and works in everything it does to further the Chinese agenda including flooding America with illegal immigrants.”
Sorry, but the Democratic party does NOT have a monopoly on globalization. Nor on immigration until Trump came along. Republicans and the Business Round Table support both.
“They don’t want a guest worker program because it wouldn’t lead to citizenship”
“Guest worker” is nothing more than newspeak for what, back in the civilized era pre newspeak, was accurately referred to as “slave.”
Nonsense. They can leave anytime they want if they don’t like it. Contracts or practices that prevent them from going back should be illegal and prosecuted (if not already). No reason why others shouldn’t be able to continue.
hyperbole much?….
“1st, these are not ” immigrants who were believed to be working without legal documentation” they were illegal immigrants who broke our immigration laws by illegally entering our country.”
When did I ever say otherwise?
My objection is taking productive members of society, rounding them up, separating them from their kids and sending them back.
There was a PERFECT solution to this. Senate Minority leader offered Trump $20 billion for a wall in return for an amnesty program for illegals who have been here a long time.
Trump turned it down. Totally moronic.
And by the way, it is Generally Republican-owner companies exploiting workers and moving work to China.
So you are wrong Twice.
Amnesty is okay for ‘illegals’ brought here as children – but should not be used for everyone.
Reagan signed an amnesty bill back in 1984 or thereabouts. It included measures to (supposedly) stop illegals but did the opposite.
Amnesty actually encourages people to come here even when it is not in their interest to do so, lest they not get a chance to come later.
Multi National Corporations are not Republican or Democratic, they are simply profit minded globalists. The political parties pander to the Corporations for monetary support. In this case, the Democrats have aligned their desire for votes which illegals provide, both through voting illegally and legally after amnesty, with the desire by Corporations to exploit illegal labor at the expense of American workers.
Raise the wage to something a person can live on, and we won’t need immigrants for those jobs.
Yeah, but then the end consumer will complain about these increases.
This is a systemic problem:
Wages like everything else are subject to the laws of supply and demand.
As long as you are skewing the supply of labor with illegal immigration, the supply of labor will be plentiful, and the wages will be kept low. Ending illegal immigration will make labor more valuable and result in higher wages. This is not rocket science.
I have not heard Trump say he opposes immigration – just illegal immigration.
So we should ICE raid all the meat packing plants, no meat for you!
I am not defending ICE or Trump (whom I did not vote for). I am stating things as I have heard them.
And, btw, the real issue that made illegal immigration a political one is AMNESTY. That proposal is what woke up the voters.
By “illegal” he means, every immigrant not working at Trump related properties or those who are essential to his enjoyment of life. Otherwise they are illegal.
Bullshit.
Hmmm–and he suspends all visas, why??
This is quite recent and supposedly temporary. I suppose he’s worried that businesses that are open will hire immigrants to replace American workers who won’t come to work because they fear the virus. But I don’t really know and I didn’t vote for him. I have heard him say in the past the US needs immigrants but that they must go through the legal process.
You know someone is an idiot when they claim someone hates immigrants that is married to one.
Lastly, I hate when people throw out the word amnesty without knowing what it means. Amnesty is permitting all undocumented people in a certain group to become legal, no questions asked. No one is asking for amnesty. What makes sense for America is to let certain undocumented people admit to committing the misdemeanor of entering the US without proper documents and pay a fine; admit to working without authorization and agree to hours of public service; pay a penalty if they can’t prove that they have paid taxes (many, many undocumented have paid taxes); and go through an extensive background security check. And in return, I believe that 99% of the undocumented in this country only want and need the right to stay here; to work and pay taxes; and to be able to travel home to visit family. I think they would take this deal without the right to become a citizen, without the right to sponsor other family members, and without the right to vote. My solution anyway.
“Amnesty is permitting all undocumented people in a certain group to become legal, no questions asked. No one is asking for amnesty.”
No one is asking for amnesty now because former House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor, was booted from Congress in PRIMARY election for advocating it.
But amnesty is what started the whole debate.
Trump and ICE will look away.
Until they don’t, again.
Ok Trumptards get to defending!