If you’ve ever done farm work (I have) you can certainly see why not. Not that it makes me sympathetic.
Makes me recall a now-humorous memory. One summer my father sent me to spend a week with one of his cousins who owned a family farm. What did I get from that week? A life-long determination to acquire skills that would let me work in a climate-controlled environment where I didn't have to lift heavy things. Or put my fingers in the near neighborhood of rotary machinery with blades and no safety cover.
2026-02-11 23:33:06
GA tried making it actually illegal to hire illegals, and it was a disaster.
Many years back now, the Colorado General Assembly was considering a bill, introduced by rural Republican members, that was basically a license for the sheriffs' departments in rural counties to hassle short brown ag workers. Once word got out, the eastern plains wheat farmers began getting calls from the custom cutters** saying they were just going to skip Colorado if the bill passed. Typically something like, "All my crews are legal, but I'm not going to put them at the mercy of your sheriff's asshole deputies." The bill died.
** Custom cutters are groups with one or more big combines and a bunch of trucks who harvest vast wheat fields when they're ripe. It's migratory work, starting in Texas and moving north as the summer progresses. Really erratic work. If it rains you can't harvest, and sometimes getting the job done in time means working by headlights all night long. Farmers, or even small groups of farmers, can't afford big combines. These days, some of them go for $500,000 or higher.
If you’ve ever done farm work (I have) you can certainly see why not. Not that it makes me sympathetic.
Makes me recall a now-humorous memory. One summer my father sent me to spend a week with one of his cousins who owned a family farm. What did I get from that week? A life-long determination to acquire skills that would let me work in a climate-controlled environment where I didn't have to lift heavy things. Or put my fingers in the near neighborhood of rotary machinery with blades and no safety cover.
GA tried making it actually illegal to hire illegals, and it was a disaster.
Many years back now, the Colorado General Assembly was considering a bill, introduced by rural Republican members, that was basically a license for the sheriffs' departments in rural counties to hassle short brown ag workers. Once word got out, the eastern plains wheat farmers began getting calls from the custom cutters** saying they were just going to skip Colorado if the bill passed. Typically something like, "All my crews are legal, but I'm not going to put them at the mercy of your sheriff's asshole deputies." The bill died.
** Custom cutters are groups with one or more big combines and a bunch of trucks who harvest vast wheat fields when they're ripe. It's migratory work, starting in Texas and moving north as the summer progresses. Really erratic work. If it rains you can't harvest, and sometimes getting the job done in time means working by headlights all night long. Farmers, or even small groups of farmers, can't afford big combines. These days, some of them go for $500,000 or higher.