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The New York Times Runs Sob Story About a WI Dairy Farmer Who Might Lose His 'Undocumented' Laborers and Hurt His Business
Townhall ^ | 03/30/2026 | Amy Curtis

Posted on 03/30/2026 9:21:17 PM PDT by SeekAndFind

Democrats have made it very clear that one of the reasons they support unfettered illegal immigration is that they want to import a slave-labor class that they can pay cheaply and keep in deplorable working conditions. They prove this every time they argue that, sans illegals, we wouldn't have anyone to clean our toilets or cut our grass and the price of our produce would go up because farmers would have to pay people a living wage to harvest crops (a lot of which is automated these days, anyway).

Now the New York Times is playing that card again, this time with Wisconsin, where a farm that made the choice to hire "undocumented workers" is worried deportations will hurt their business.

In Wisconsin, undocumented immigrants perform roughly 70% of the labor on the state's dairy farms. At the O'Harrow farm, the Republican family owners worry that the immigration crackdown will hurt their workers and their business.

@stavernise https://t.co/ndPFPaUWNn— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) March 30, 2026

Here's more:

That worker, who came from Mexico as a teenager, knew that a calf that was sick in the morning could be dead by evening. He knew this because he has worked in the dairy industry in Wisconsin for his entire adult life, and on this family farm for about 20 years. Now in his 40s, he has mastered the intricacies of milking, birthing and inseminating, and logging it all onto a computer. This February morning, he was passing down his knowledge to the 19-year-old grandson of the family who employs him.

“We’re a little bit behind today, so you can hear everybody’s kind of angry at us,” said Sullivan O’Harrow, the grandson, who motioned toward the bellowing calves as he walked beside the worker training him.

Immigrant workers are the lifeblood of the O’Harrow farm, a four-generation family enterprise with 1,600 cows in northeastern Wisconsin. But many of them will not travel to Mexico to see dying parents, or drive to nearby towns to visit siblings, or let journalists use their names in newspapers, because they are afraid of being swept up in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown.

That they need to hide strikes the O’Harrow family as morally wrong, but also as potentially bad for the country: These workers oversee America’s milk. By one estimate, dairies that employ immigrant workers produce 79 percent of the nation’s milk supply and the price of milk would double without them.

That 70 percent stat is, at best, milked — pardon the pun — by a University of Wisconsin-Madison School for Workers poll.

So we're sure those numbers are totally reliable.

This isn't the first time the Left has pretended Wisconsin will collapse if we enforce immigration laws. Governor Tony Evers said the state's economy would "implode" if we enforced immigration laws. Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Tiffany fired back at this claim, writing on X, "Illegal immigration drives down wages and undercuts Wisconsin workers. As governor, I will stand with hardworking Wisconsinites and protect your jobs from foreign labor."

Yes. He knowingly hired people who couldn't legally work in this country, and then is shocked to face consequences for it.

Bingo. All those costs are passed on to us, anyway.

This is also going to backfire, because check out what happened to one farm after immigration authorities removed his workers:

Whoops.

The solution here is to not break the law.

We'll never get that story. But in 2023, illegal immigration cost U.S. taxpayers $150 billion and that's without all the massive fraud.

This is correct.

That's what Democrats continually do: they defend and cheer on slave labor. If this farmer voted for President Trump, he did so knowing that immigration enforcement and deportations were on the table. No one should have been surprised by this. Our immigration laws exist for a reason.

This story also shows that we need legal consequences for businesses that knowingly hire illegal aliens to do their work. That, along with removing welfare benefits, will discourage such practices and encourage more self-deportations when the jobs (along with the "free" housing and healthcare) dry up.



TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events; US: Wisconsin
KEYWORDS: dairy; farm; illegals; labor; robotics; wisconsin

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1 posted on 03/30/2026 9:21:17 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
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To: SeekAndFind

The progressive media is at the very heart of so many problems we face today.


2 posted on 03/30/2026 9:23:09 PM PDT by ProgressingAmerica (The U.S. Constitution is not a suicide pact. Progressivism is a suicide pact.)
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To: SeekAndFind

All beside the point.
Muddying the waters.
I doubt if Tren de Aragua is out milking cows.……they make too much $$$$ on drugs and human trafficking……with murder on the side.
We also don’t need illegal alien psychiatric prisoners dumped here…..they can’t milk cows.


3 posted on 03/30/2026 9:31:04 PM PDT by doc maverick
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To: SeekAndFind

The New York Slimes could care less about all of the stolen Social Security numbers these illegal invaders are using.


4 posted on 03/30/2026 9:36:13 PM PDT by Ronaldus Magnus III (Do, or do not, there is no try. )
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To: SeekAndFind
First installed milking machines in 2007? He must have been asleep for decades.

5 posted on 03/30/2026 9:44:19 PM PDT by Governor Dinwiddie ( O give thanks unto the Lord, for He is gracious, and his mercy endures forever. — Psalm 106)
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To: SeekAndFind

How MOOOOOOving.

Dear Mr. Tom Homan, please send MORE ICE PLEASE to WI dairy farms and also please bring the IRS to get some face time with the Dairy farm owners.


6 posted on 03/30/2026 10:09:55 PM PDT by BFW
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To: SeekAndFind

Tough 💩. Hiring illegals, is illegal. Get right or you should go to jail. IMO


7 posted on 03/30/2026 10:12:19 PM PDT by Equine1952 (MM1SS SASOB)
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To: SeekAndFind

Force Americans off welfare and off of EBT cards, and hire them instead of the so-called “undocumented immigrants,” AKA illegal aliens.


8 posted on 03/30/2026 10:22:51 PM PDT by july4thfreedomfoundation (Charlie Kirk's assassination / murder was our Fort Sumter moment. But only one side is fighting.)
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To: Equine1952
There are rural areas in this country where the hiring of illegals has been built into the culture for many decades, and since we've chosen to "look the other way" over those decades, those workers deserve special consideration IMHO.

Also, I've seen with my own eyes here in my very small, rural home that native Americans have lost a great deal of their work ethic.

Regarding Mexican's being "slaves" .. the ones I know have a typical American lifestyle (and better/newer vehicles than this former aerospace engineer).

9 posted on 03/30/2026 11:28:46 PM PDT by The Duke (Not without incident)
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To: SeekAndFind

Ah, the New York Slimes, you can always count on this demoncRAT rag to tug at the bleeding hearts.


10 posted on 03/30/2026 11:44:15 PM PDT by gildafarrell (To Strive, To Seek, To Find and Not To Yield!)
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To: The Duke

Legal vs illegal. Get right. Doing it wrong for years don’t make it right.


11 posted on 03/31/2026 1:22:32 AM PDT by Equine1952 (MM1SS SASOB)
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To: SeekAndFind

Plantation owner, 1870: But who will pick my cotton?


12 posted on 03/31/2026 1:35:54 AM PDT by servo1969
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To: The Duke
They prove this every time they argue that, sans illegals, we wouldn't have anyone to clean our toilets or cut our grass and the price of our produce would go up because farmers would have to pay people a living wage to harvest crops

Also, I've seen with my own eyes here in my very small, rural home that native Americans have lost a great deal of their work ethic.

Yes, it is reported that

only about 9% of U.S. farmers are under age 35, highlighting a severe, decades-long decline in young people entering agriculture, with the average farmer age approaching 60.

There is very small % of recent generations who choose farm work, and the proffered automated solution requires the farmer to have the capital to do so, and means that less citizens will be employed.

And since contraception is almost mandated, then the fact is that immigrants are necessary.

So if these immigrants seek to work, the path to obtain citizenship needs improvement.

I myself do not know much about it, but Cato asserts:

Today, fewer than 1 percent of people who want to move permanently to the United States can do so legally. I

13 posted on 03/31/2026 1:51:14 AM PDT by daniel1212 (Turn 2 the Lord Jesus who saves damned+destitute sinners on His acct, believe, b baptized+follow HIM)
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To: SeekAndFind

What about the American workers he will not hire?
I bet he was/is under paying the mexican workers and not paying taxes either.


14 posted on 03/31/2026 1:52:40 AM PDT by minnesota_bound (Making money now. Still want much more.)
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To: SeekAndFind
"No one needs to be in the barn at 5 on a bitterly cold morning"

since machines never break nor need oversight. Plus the robots milkers can cost more than $200,000 each. "....estimates one robot would cost about $250,000, not including the physical infrastructure (such as a potential barn expansion, milk house or other needs) to use it." - https://investigatemidwest.org/2023/04/27/for-years-farmers-milked-cows-by-hand-now-robots-and-technology-do-the-work/

That said, robotics seem essential for most to remain competitive.

15 posted on 03/31/2026 2:09:14 AM PDT by daniel1212 (Turn 2 the Lord Jesus who saves damned+destitute sinners on His acct, believe, b baptized+follow HIM)
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To: SeekAndFind
a dairy farmer who deployed robots after immigration authorities arrested one of his workers. The farm now produces three times more milk per worker, while employees earn more, work shorter hours, and do less grueling work.

I've been saying for years that leaning on the crutch of mexislaves stifles innovation.

16 posted on 03/31/2026 2:14:27 AM PDT by Sirius Lee ("Never argue with a fool, onlookers may not be able to tell the difference.)
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