“By then the lettuce is rotting in the field and the grower is broke, are you going to buy the farm and take the gamble?”
No, but that is sort of a socialist challenge.
Capitalism involves risk and reward.
Here you are a lettuce farmer. You can’t hire illegals any more. What do you do?
1) Sell the farm.
2) Rent the farm.
3) Switch crops.
4) Test the market and see how much you’d have to pay non-illegals to pick, then proceed.
5) Possibly lose the farm; but possibly clean up since other lettuce farmers didn’t choose as wisely as you did.
This also presupposes that the law is being fairly upheld on all lettuce farmers. If you are the only one who can’t hire illegals, you won’t succeed.
But a good capitalist such as myself advocates for the fair enforcement of laws.
build a lettuce picking machine?