Republican Fear-Mongering Hurts Farmers

According to the Department of Labor's National Agricultural Survey, 53% of the workers helping to harvest American crops do not have the proper documentation to work in this country. Grower's associations and worker advocates think it's closer to 80%. These worker's are crucial to the timely harvesting of our crops.

But with the Republican fear-mongering in this election year, many of these worker's are simply not coming anymore. Republican's have tried to scare Americans with visions of terrorists crossing our southern border in hordes. The truth is, that they can't point to a single incident where a terrorist has crossed our southern border illegally.

But while the increased border security is doing nothing to fight terrorism, it is having other effects. By scaring the agricultural workers away, they are costing our farmer's millions of dollars in profit. No one benefits from a crop rotting in the fields - not the workers, not the farmers, and not the consumers.

Consumers can expect the prices for many items to go up. Whether we want to admit it or not, prices for our agricultural products are kept low because thousands of "illegal immigrants" are willing to come here, and do back-breakingly hard work for meager pay. If they can't come over the border to do this work, consumer prices will climb sharply.

And don't even try to tell me there are Americans willing to do this work. The work is there and the farmers are willing to hire anyone who will do the work. Where are these "willing" Americans?

Once again, Republicans have shown they are willing to hurt Americans to get a few more votes. Grab your posketbooks consumers, cause this nonsense is going to hurt.