Rural Areas Need to Embrace Immigrants

In this post I will elaborate on what I mentioned in my previous post that counters your belief that Americans would actually take immigrants hold. Though I will focus on this aspect of your argument, I would also like to say I agree with your graphs in that 1) yes, immigration has increased, and that 2) yes, unemployment has risen; However, there are many variables in reasons for that unemployment, including outsourcing, automation, globalization/competition, the list goes on and on. To say immigration is the most major cause of unemployment is not valid. I will discuss evidence on why Americans are not and will not take the jobs, including reasons for the H2A program of the US government, conversations with farmers and the United Farm Worker's ‘Take Our Jobs' campaign. First, let me make myself clear, I agree that Americans should take these jobs over immigrants, but the issue is simple, Americans aren't willing to do this work. I'll explain. As I mentioned in my previous post, there is an assumption immigrants drag the wages in these types of jobs so low American aren't willing to do them. If this were true, why does the H2A program exist? From my previous post: "The main reason for [tension between ruralites and immigrants] is the shaky assumption that immigrants, the majority of which are indeed present illegally from Latin America, create a reserve pool of labor that keeps wages suppressed in agricultural jobs and jobs from American citizens in general. However, the real situation seems to be that these jobs are so dangerous and laborious that very few Americans are willing to do them. Evidence can be seen in the government's H2A guestworker program, where farm owners are required to pay agricultural "guest workers" federal minimum wage with free housing and transport to and from their home country. Many Americans work for minimum wage, without free housing, yet farm owners must use these programs to incentivize laborers and fill the labor shortages. " Let me repeat, American citizens won't take these jobs…Until Americans take these jobs, like it or not, immigrant current and increasing presence in rural areas is fixed. On the same note, in my experience working with food producers (producer being a more respectable word for farmer), Americans cannot be found to take the jobs. I am studying Sustainable Food Systems at NC State, a land-grant institution founded on agriculture, and through my curriculum, I have visited many small-scale and mid-size farms and have talked with many of those producers. Those producers have said they can't find Americans to do these jobs immigrants often do, some examples being pickers for fruits and vegetables, meatpackers in factories and dishwashers. The only Americans they can find are high schoolers looking for summer jobs, a temporary and unreliable source. When I ask about labor laws, producers get very defensive. They hate hiring immigrant labor, they hate that immigrants do not speak English, they hate visits from the state's Department of Labor and their laws, they hate the minimum wage laws, but they simply cannot find Americans to do the jobs. If they could, they would. This being said, even with immigrant labor, there are shortages in labor for agriculture. Arturo Rodriguez, president of United Farm Workers (UFW), testified in Congress in September 2010 on this issue, speaking about one way he thought this shortage of labor could be addressed while making immigrants more comfortable: the Ag Jobs bill. (My argument is not focusing on this bill, but FYI, the Ag Jobs bill is a compromise between agribusinesses and agricultural workers to increase conditions for workers by providing a path to legal residency for workers who continue to work in agriculture, thereby better guaranteeing a permanent labor force in agriculture. ) Rodriguez spoke in Congress on behalf of all farm workers, including the "ï¿½ of all farm workers that are born outside the country today. " Rodriguez highlighted the UFW's ‘Take Our Jobs' campaign. He said,"We did invite citizens and legal residents [to take our jobs]. Since June 24, we received 8,600 inquiries through our website, but only 7 people have accepted those jobs on a full-time basis and continue to work in agriculture" (takeourjobs. org and youtube. com/watch? v=AKRyHkWzlGE&feature=player_embedded). So in a time span of 3 months, they receive 8,600 inquiries into the jobs, but only 7 accepted the jobs. That is only 7 Americans took an immigrant's job out of 8,600. If Americans would take the jobs, there would not be an H2A program, producers would not complain about labor shortages in a time of unemployment and the UFW would not have their campaign. If you do think immigrants bring wages down, how high would the wages have to be to get Americans to do this work? And are other Americans willing to pay that much more for their food just for their fellow CITIZEN to have a job? I do not think they would. I think immigrants are here to stay and they do have the potential to save our rural areas in all the ways I highlighted previously, so why not embrace this potential and stop kidding ourselves that Americans will ever do these jobs?