this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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United States | News & Politics

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The reason is simple: an increase in immigration enforcement, including high-profile ICE raids, shook Texas farm workers to their core. The news filtered fast that workers—regardless of legal status—chose safety over a salary.

Farmers, who had been working with their crews for decades, described the loss as “devastating” and “unprecedented.” This is alarming as most farms are founded upon immigrant labor, both legal and illegal, creating a domino effect for the food system as a whole.

. . . When farm workers vanish, the effects are felt far beyond the fields. Livestock is untended, crops go unpicked, food production declines, and food prices dramatically increase. In Texas alone, where specialty vegetables and fruits must be hand-picked, worker shortages jeopardize entire harvest seasons.

This results in fewer foods on grocery store shelves, higher prices for families nationwide, and a greater reliance on imports. Threads on Reddit and YouTube are already predicting price hikes and empty produce shelves.

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[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) (1 children)

Who could have seen this coming.

[–] homesweethomeMrL@lemmy.world 4 points 6 hours ago

They were totally blindsided

[–] Sturgist@lemmy.ca 15 points 9 hours ago
[–] Dead_or_Alive@lemmy.world 29 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

Mark my words Republicans will turn to using convict labor to harvest crops before they ever turn on Trump or admit any faults.

Step1: Round up undocumented immigrants and criminals.

Step2: Put them in prison for “crimes”.

Step3: Profit! Lease them to farms for $1 a day. Since slavery is legal if you are incarcerated. Republicans are going to build an entire underclass of criminals who will do these jobs.

Bonus: None of the brown people or criminals will be able to vote because they are now felons. Farmers will cry and vote Republican if anyone even suggests doing away with the prison industrial system.

[–] Catma@lemmy.world 13 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

So slavery with more steps?

[–] discosnails@lemmy.wtf 2 points 4 hours ago

Not that many steps really.

[–] Chulk@lemmy.ml 8 points 8 hours ago

Always has been

[–] DarkFuture@lemmy.world 7 points 8 hours ago

Hope it hurts.

[–] spoke0thedevil@lemmy.zip 6 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Did anyone else get ai vibes while reading the article? Idk if it's just me but the writing seemed so generic like something chat gpt spits out.

[–] Olhonestjim@lemmy.world 5 points 9 hours ago

Texas can survive all on its own!

[–] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 31 points 14 hours ago (1 children)

It's too bad that I don't give a fuck about farmers who voted to arrest their workforce. Put on a cowboy hat and harvest your produce yourself. This is what you wanted.

If you didn't notice, I also hate cowboys.

[–] funkyfarmington@lemmy.world 8 points 9 hours ago

I thought I was the only one who thought this. I've never met someone wearing a cowboy hat who had integrity.

[–] rekabis@lemmy.ca 43 points 20 hours ago (2 children)

They voted for this.

Let them figure it out.

If you own property, start a garden. You’re likely going to need it.

[–] Tollana1234567@lemmy.today 5 points 20 hours ago

" you vote for what i campaigned, on deal with it"-trump

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[–] halferect@lemmy.world 36 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

I'm sure there are plenty of Republicans willing to take a job for shit pay that is back breaking and dangerous right?

[–] Glitterbomb@lemmy.world 3 points 8 hours ago

Good news, Texans: the tailor that makes bootstraps didn't vanish overnight

[–] lurch@sh.itjust.works 22 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Finally the jerbs they wanted arrived. So lucky. /s

[–] halferect@lemmy.world 5 points 22 hours ago

It really is wonderful, I could only wish to have the government give me my dream job, and these Republicans just get handed a golden opportunity, it's like Charlie and the golden ticket, I will go down and congrat them on the big winnings and bestest deals while they are knee deep in pig shit

[–] N0t_5ure@lemmy.world 63 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I wonder how many of these farmers in Texas voted for Trump? My guess is the majority of them. You reap what you sow.

[–] UniversalBasicJustice@lemmy.dbzer0.com 46 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Actually this year is "Nobody reaps what you've sown and it rots in the field" but that's not as succinct.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 14 hours ago

It's one of those rare moments when both something and its opposite are objectivelly true.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 113 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (12 children)

Phase 2: Prison labor

It also carries the side “benefit” of getting farm owners (and, indirectly, anyone who cares about being able to eat food) complicit in and supportive of the “person who didn’t do anything wrong -> detention” pipeline as it ramps up and expands.

You heard it here first.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 8 points 14 hours ago* (last edited 14 hours ago)

Even "better", only people with the right connections will have access to this slave labour, so only very wealthy or very Fascist farmers will get their harvests harvested.

Win, win, win for Fascism in the US.

[–] fartographer@lemmy.world 28 points 1 day ago (2 children)

No, that's phase 3. Phase 2 is foreclosures, bankruptcy, and buying at insanely discounted rates. THEN it's ~~slave~~prison labor.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 4 points 21 hours ago

You're still off by 1, before you can have prison labor they're going to have to make disagreeing with the government punishable by forced labor. Then they're going to farm all of the social media and lock everyone up.

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[–] ragepaw@lemmy.ca 34 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I have been predicting the return of slavery wide scale via prisoners for years.

[–] frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io 33 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It's already been going on, now it will just increase in scale. The ICE detainees are being used for labor in the detention centers for fuck's sake! At least prisoners are directly exempt in the law for being convicted of a crime (however corrupted the concept might be), detainees waiting for processing aren't convicted of shit.

[–] pupbiru@aussie.zone 1 points 59 minutes ago

that’s just synergising industries to increase efficiency and effectiveness of under-utilised resources!

/S

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 13 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Predicting? I mean.....you're a little late, bub. That shit's been happening since the 80s. Blame Reagan.

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 1 points 12 hours ago

One of the few things Reagan did that was ok was granting amnesty to migrant workers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control_Act_of_1986

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[–] lurch@sh.itjust.works 17 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

inb4 they make children and prisoners do it

[–] IAmNorRealTakeYourMeds@lemmy.world 3 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

why use prisoners? they are detaining countless immigrants, they might put them on forced labour.

so Immigrants will have to work the fields for no pay.

[–] Kit@lemmy.blahaj.zone 3 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

Hang on, I've seen this one before.

fascism without slave labour is like a bike without wheels

[–] prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 2 points 7 hours ago

Yeah, immigrant prisoners.

[–] lettruthout@lemmy.world 29 points 1 day ago (4 children)

So that was written by AI, right?

[–] BananaIsABerry@lemmy.zip 3 points 9 hours ago

You telling me that "Animal planet HQ" might not be a reliable political news source?

[–] rimu@piefed.social 5 points 22 hours ago

Disappointing to see such slop so heavily upvoted just because it fits what people want to see.

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[–] N0t_5ure@lemmy.world 11 points 1 day ago (1 children)
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