Tweet
Mollie Tibbetts case exposes farms' worst-kept secret: hiring undocumented immigrants
August 24, 2018:
Dane Lang, a co-owner of Yarrabee Farms outside of Brooklyn, Iowa, stood outside his family farm this week and lamented that he had employed the undocumented immigrant charged in the murder of 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts.
Then he was asked if any other non-U.S. citizens were among the 10 employees on the dairy farm.
"I don't think I can comment to that," Lang said.
That vague answer highlights the worst-kept secret in the agriculture business: roughly half of the nation's 1.4 million field workers (47 percent, or 685,000 workers) are undocumented immigrants. And that estimate, from the Labor Department, is a conservative one with labor experts citing far higher percentages...
Farmers across the country saw exactly what would happen if the government took an enforcement-only approach after Arizona passed an anti-immigration bill in 2010, leading a half-dozen states to follow suit. The laws, which included the requirement that all businesses use the E-Verify system, sent undocumented immigrants out of those states in droves.
Alabama's immigration law pushed up to 80,000 workers out of the state, according to a study conducted by the University of Alabama.
Georgia's immigration law led to more than $140 million in unharvested crops in 2011 because so many workers fled the state, according to a report commissioned by the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association.
The fleeing workers in Arizona resulted in an average 2 percent drop in the state's gross domestic product every year through 2015, according to an analysis conducted by The Wall Street Journal.
Finding American workers to make up for the shortfall was just as difficult. In Georgia, Gov. ********** Nathan Deal turned to people on probation in 2011, but most walked off the jobs almost immediately.
That same year in North Carolina, as 489,000 people were unemployed statewide, the North Carolina Growers Association listed 6,500 available jobs, but just 268 North Carolinians applied, 163 showed up for work, and only seven finished the season, according to a study by the Partnership for a New American Economy.
America wake up! You can't keep biting the hand that literally feeds you!
August 24, 2018:
Dane Lang, a co-owner of Yarrabee Farms outside of Brooklyn, Iowa, stood outside his family farm this week and lamented that he had employed the undocumented immigrant charged in the murder of 20-year-old Mollie Tibbetts.
Then he was asked if any other non-U.S. citizens were among the 10 employees on the dairy farm.
"I don't think I can comment to that," Lang said.
That vague answer highlights the worst-kept secret in the agriculture business: roughly half of the nation's 1.4 million field workers (47 percent, or 685,000 workers) are undocumented immigrants. And that estimate, from the Labor Department, is a conservative one with labor experts citing far higher percentages...
Farmers across the country saw exactly what would happen if the government took an enforcement-only approach after Arizona passed an anti-immigration bill in 2010, leading a half-dozen states to follow suit. The laws, which included the requirement that all businesses use the E-Verify system, sent undocumented immigrants out of those states in droves.
Alabama's immigration law pushed up to 80,000 workers out of the state, according to a study conducted by the University of Alabama.
Georgia's immigration law led to more than $140 million in unharvested crops in 2011 because so many workers fled the state, according to a report commissioned by the Georgia Fruit and Vegetable Growers Association.
The fleeing workers in Arizona resulted in an average 2 percent drop in the state's gross domestic product every year through 2015, according to an analysis conducted by The Wall Street Journal.
Finding American workers to make up for the shortfall was just as difficult. In Georgia, Gov. ********** Nathan Deal turned to people on probation in 2011, but most walked off the jobs almost immediately.
That same year in North Carolina, as 489,000 people were unemployed statewide, the North Carolina Growers Association listed 6,500 available jobs, but just 268 North Carolinians applied, 163 showed up for work, and only seven finished the season, according to a study by the Partnership for a New American Economy.
America wake up! You can't keep biting the hand that literally feeds you!
Comment