this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2025
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United States | News & Politics

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The reason is simple: an increase in immigration enforcement, including high-profile ICE raids, shook Texas farm workers to their core. The news filtered fast that workers—regardless of legal status—chose safety over a salary.

Farmers, who had been working with their crews for decades, described the loss as “devastating” and “unprecedented.” This is alarming as most farms are founded upon immigrant labor, both legal and illegal, creating a domino effect for the food system as a whole.

. . . When farm workers vanish, the effects are felt far beyond the fields. Livestock is untended, crops go unpicked, food production declines, and food prices dramatically increase. In Texas alone, where specialty vegetables and fruits must be hand-picked, worker shortages jeopardize entire harvest seasons.

This results in fewer foods on grocery store shelves, higher prices for families nationwide, and a greater reliance on imports. Threads on Reddit and YouTube are already predicting price hikes and empty produce shelves.

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[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 107 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (9 children)

Phase 2: Prison labor

It also carries the side “benefit” of getting farm owners (and, indirectly, anyone who cares about being able to eat food) complicit in and supportive of the “person who didn’t do anything wrong -> detention” pipeline as it ramps up and expands.

You heard it here first.

[–] ragepaw@lemmy.ca 31 points 20 hours ago (3 children)

I have been predicting the return of slavery wide scale via prisoners for years.

[–] frustrated_phagocytosis@fedia.io 30 points 20 hours ago

It's already been going on, now it will just increase in scale. The ICE detainees are being used for labor in the detention centers for fuck's sake! At least prisoners are directly exempt in the law for being convicted of a crime (however corrupted the concept might be), detainees waiting for processing aren't convicted of shit.

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 12 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

Predicting? I mean.....you're a little late, bub. That shit's been happening since the 80s. Blame Reagan.

[–] anomnom@sh.itjust.works 1 points 4 hours ago

One of the few things Reagan did that was ok was granting amnesty to migrant workers.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_Reform_and_Control_Act_of_1986

[–] FartMaster69@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 19 hours ago* (last edited 19 hours ago)

It’s not hard to predict something currently happening will continue to happen.

[–] fartographer@lemmy.world 25 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

No, that's phase 3. Phase 2 is foreclosures, bankruptcy, and buying at insanely discounted rates. THEN it's ~~slave~~prison labor.

[–] rumba@lemmy.zip 4 points 13 hours ago

You're still off by 1, before you can have prison labor they're going to have to make disagreeing with the government punishable by forced labor. Then they're going to farm all of the social media and lock everyone up.

[–] HeyThisIsntTheYMCA@lemmy.world 2 points 15 hours ago

I thought that was phases 3 then 4, phase 2 was building debtors prisons,

[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 8 points 18 hours ago

Phase 3: Expansion of laws to criminalise any vauge behaviour the govt decides is unacceptable.

When everyone is guilty, you can extort the funded class to look the other way and exploit the unfunded class by imprisonment and forced Labor. The legal system will be saturated by arrests for 'disorderly conduct', 'resistimg arrest' and 'anti-governmemt activities' faster than the courts can keep up with tossing out bogus charges. If you have money,you post bail and try really hard to behave yourself and not rock the boat. If you don't have money, it's off to the work farms for you.

[–] Aceticon@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

Even "better", only people with the right connections will have access to this slave labour, so only very wealthy or very Fascist farmers will get their harvests harvested.

Win, win, win for Fascism in the US.

[–] fodor@lemmy.zip 4 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

I heard it in The Shawshank Redemption first.

[–] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 5 points 20 hours ago* (last edited 20 hours ago) (1 children)
[–] Agent641@lemmy.world 5 points 18 hours ago

Can't a man cut the heads off parking metres in the privacy of his own town without being treated like some sort of criminal?!

[–] Lost_My_Mind@lemmy.world 3 points 18 hours ago

Actually, I think I heard it first in the 1200s when Genghis Khan had similar concepts. He also would raze the village, kill the men and children, and rape the women......but give it time. Maybe that's one of the provisions within "the big beautiful bill". Maybe it's coming next year.

.........I don't know if I should indicate that I'm joking. It's the kind of joke where you laugh, but also it's a nervous laugh because you no longer feel safe in your own country, and it REALLY feels like we need a new modern civil war to take out the trash like we did 200 years ago.

[–] Lemminary@lemmy.world 2 points 14 hours ago

Don't forget the chillun, unless they only yearn for the mines... ☹