The packing houses can certainly find American citizens who would like to work there. Ten or fifteen years ago, they actually paid good wages, and it was considered a good (although dirty) job. When I was a teen, I had several classmates whose fathers drove 60 miles to work at these places every day...and supported their families by themselves.
Now, they pay next to nothing, and ADVERTISE in Mexico for employees.
Haven't you notices the sharp decline in the price of meat at the store? NO? I thought not...and the farmers are making less too. So, who benefits? The monopoly called packing houses. Who loses? The small, formerly nice, communites that have been overrun with drugs and crime.
A couple of years ago, a smaller community here in Iowa made big news when they REFUSED to allow a pack to open; they blocked them from purchasing land because of what they had seen only 30 miles down the road. What had they seen? A community of 8,000 people in rural Iowa having to come up with the funds to build a new jail and to fund a police officer in the school to control gangs, of all things!
i grew up on a dairy farm, and my father and brother still work the farm.
they get nothing for their milk or meat. (retired cows go on to mcdonald's.)
my guess is that the american agribusiness corporations, such as dean foods, archer daniels midland, etc., are responsible for making us literally--
"working poor".
in california i notice that dairy farmers get $2.00 less/ 100 lbs. for their milk, some went broke, and the big farms survive. how? . many that are in business survive by means of land that they've sold for development, and of course, by hiring illegals.