If you haven't seen one of the modern pickers, they are pretty awesome machines...and pricey!

Illegal Immigration suppresses wages. Take away the modern-day slave trade of low wages for illegals, and you will see wages rise to get people to work on picking the veggies. Of course, we will see higher food prices too, but that is what the market demands. Kills innovation too. The Dems always love some low wage of free wage people doing work for them.

MD1993 said:

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Illegal Immigration suppresses wages. Take away the modern-day slave trade of low wages for illegals, and you will see wages rise to get people to work on picking the veggies. Of course, we will see higher food prices too, but that is what the market demands. Kills innovation too. The Dems always love some low wage of free wage people doing work for them.

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So you see it (kicking out illegals) as a type of wage/price correction where the higher prices we'll be paying are just the prices we should've been paying all along? Something like that?

Speaking to the theme of needing illegals to work on the farm, that may have been true 40 years ago, and may still be true of some vegetable and fruit crops

But it just isn't true for the vast majority of Agriculture. Advances in technology, herbicides, and genetics have eliminated tons of labor, and have necessitated a more educated work force. The cotton strippers/pickers referenced above cost up to a million dollars each, brand new. They steer with GPS to sub-inch accuracy, and are monitored by computer.

You aren't going to hire an illegal with no technical background and stick him on a machine worth 7 figures.

The guy who works our family land in Hale County now, works 5-10 times as much as I did at my peak. And he has two full time hired hands.

Both citizens, both with college degrees.

CNN is ignorant, elitist, and condescending

But we all knew that

If he isn't saying that, I will. And his point about innovation rings true. Those cotton picking machines that cost a million dollars, do you think anyone would spend that kind of money, if illegals picking by hand was cheaper and faster?

Burdizzo said:

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Is there such thing as a Baylor Stripper?

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I think they're called Preacher Wives.

CanyonAg77 said:

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If he isn't saying that, I will. And his point about innovation rings true. Those cotton picking machines that cost a million dollars, do you think anyone would spend that kind of money, if illegals picking by hand was cheaper and faster?

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Oh, I agree, and like with most things coming from the left about illegals, they are so detached from the real world they nearly always step in it.

Now, there are still things machines can't do that require manual labor, and for those items, I'm sure we'll see a jump in prices, but for things where machines do nearly all of the work, it's hard to worry about how illegals will affect them if they aren't even working there.

By 2050, robots will do 95% of the hand harvesting now being done.

CanyonAg77 said:

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If he isn't saying that, I will. And his point about innovation rings true. Those cotton picking machines that cost a million dollars, do you think anyone would spend that kind of money, if illegals picking by hand was cheaper and faster?

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This.

We still use lots of hoe crews. As far as I know they are legal temporary workers.

We also have a lot of South Africans who come over for the growing season and then go home after harvest. All sponsored and legal.

The local packing house had a huge raid about 15 years ago where they arrested about 200 illegals and broke up a counterfeit document ring. Since then they have been hiring "refugees" from every hellhole on the planet. So all legal.

suburban cowboy said:

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my (white) family picked cotton outside of Lubbock from 1940s-1960s.

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Y'all should be ashamed! Taking all the good jobs from poor minorities!

FireAg said:

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WhoTF still picks cotton by hand?

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Grad students, student workers and research technicians in research plots.

I never picked cotton
But my mother did
And my brother did
And my sister did
And my daddy died young
Working in a coal mine.

SunrayAg said:

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We still use lots of hoe crews. As far as I know they are legal temporary workers.

We also have a lot of South Africans who come over for the growing season and then go home after harvest. All sponsored and legal.

The local packing house had a huge raid about 15 years ago where they arrested about 200 illegals and broke up a counterfeit document ring. Since then they have been hiring "refugees" from every hellhole on the planet. So all legal.

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I chopped many a field of cotton in my youth. Still have callouses to show for it.

"Ain't no child labor laws on the farm" - to the tune of "Ain't no Sunshine when She's Gone".

Tell us you think blacks need to pick cotton if the illegals are sent home, without telling us you think blacks need to pick cotton.

TxAgPreacher said:

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No more welfare for those who can work, but refuse to. Time to get a job! We have lots of openings. Time for our country to get off drugs, and get to work.

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This is exactly why the GOP didn't gain much of the black vote. They've been abusing the system for generations.

CNN is a criminal organization, aiding and abetting criminals.

Shut it down.