Posted on 09/01/2025 9:54:15 AM PDT by Oldeconomybuyer
It’s tomato season and Lidia is harvesting on farms in California’s Central Valley.
She is also anxious. Attention from U.S. Immigration Control and Enforcement could upend her life more than 23 years after she illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border as a teenager.
“The worry is they’ll pull you over when you’re driving and ask for your papers,” said Lidia, who spoke to The Associated Press on condition that only her first name be used because of her fears of deportation. “We need to work. We need to feed our families and pay our rent.”
As parades and other events celebrating the contributions of workers in the U.S. are held Monday for the Labor Day holiday, experts say President Donald Trump’s stepped-up immigration policies are impacting the nation’s labor force.
More than 1.2 million immigrants disappeared from the labor force from January through the end of July, according to preliminary Census Bureau data analyzed by the Pew Research Center. That includes people who are in the country illegally as well as legal residents.
Immigrants make up almost 20% of the U.S. workforce and that data shows 45% of workers in farming, fishing and forestry are immigrants, according to Pew senior researcher Stephanie Kramer. About 30% of all construction workers are immigrants and 24% of service workers are immigrants, she added.
The loss in immigrant workers comes as the nation is seeing the first decline in the overall immigrant population after the number of people in the U.S. illegally reached an all-time high of 14 million in 2023.
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.com ...
Fake news from AP.
Probably only 10k real pickers.
Sounds too good to be true.
OMG! Cotton is going unpicked on plantations!
U.S. Immigration Control and Enforcement could upend her life more than 23 years after she illegally crossed the U.S.-Mexico border as a teenager.
“We need to work. We need to feed our families and pay our rent.”
You’ve been here illegally for 23 year
Time to feed your families and pay your rent in your own country.
The sense of self entitlement by these illegals ticks me off to no end.
only 29 million more to go ...
A good start.
Need an order of magnitude more to make a serious dent.
Sounds too good to be true.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>.
Right. So, let’s encourage Trump’s troops to get the ones still here headed back to wherever they came from!
Under the table non taxpaying scum ?
“Cotton is going unpicked on plantations”
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And laundry and dirty dishes are being unattended in rich liberal homes.
The article refers to immigrants, not illegal immigrants. Also, programs exist for seasonal agricultural employment.
Illegal aliens are not immigrants. There should be severe consequences for news media that intentionally conflate the two groups that in fact have nothing in common with each other. It’s the worst journalistic malpractice on the scene today and it’s everywhere. And of course it’s deliberate.
I am seeing more weeds than usual
“We need to work. We need to feed our families and pay our rent.”
Use your EBT card.
We don’t get rid of immigrants. We get rid of illegal aliens.
“all-time high of 14 million in 2023.”
Yes, Fake fiction. The all-time high was 2024, not 2023.
Where did the “14 million” come from. I’ve heard figures from 20 to 50 million.
The author isn’t even a good fiction writer.
“Lidia is harvesting on farms in California’s Central Valley...”
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Good to know.....I hope ICE reads this story and investigates the area.....I’m sure she’s not the only one.
“We need to work. We need to feed our families and pay our rent.”
...it’s re-fried beans and rice for you honey. In Mexico.
10K actual workers, but still 1.2M Democrat voters. :)
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