The situation is a joke. The meat industry broke the unions and shipped out jobs to nowhere decades ago, empowered by federal and state policy. You really need to have your eyes closed to not know that if you’re a state representative!
It's the worst kept political secret in the state, and I'd guess other states too.
When an immigration raid occured in Postville, Iowa in May of 2008, it devastated the local economy. The chief executive of the plant was actually charged and convicted on other crimes (commuted by President Trump last year). The city council called it an economic and humanitarian crisis.
Residents of the two counties Postville resides in voted almost 2 to 1 for President Trump.
Most illegal immigrants also simply over stay their legal visas.
Most illegal immigrants also simply over stay their legal visas
What? I know people who made $30 an hour with full benefits in the 70s doing those jobs. It amazes me people can claim to support the poor/middle class and illegal immigration at the same time
Illegal immigration killed those communities by driving down wages and forcing people to go to college and move to a city to find a job that provides a living wage. The result is the death spiral of many rural communities as young kids are forced to leave
I won't blame illegals completely, big business and corporate farms are the ones that pushed for it in the name of better profit margins for investors
Illegals are a symptom. The problems are industrial facilities with heavy manpower requirements, high turnover, designed to operate in a way that guarantees chronic medical problems with workers, placed in places with no people.
The big waves of Mexicans chose to move to places like rural Iowa in the 90s not out of a desire to break their bodies hacking at meat at high speed, but because trade policy flooded cheap corn into the market and exploded the Mexican agricultural economy.
Rural communities have been conned hook line and sinker. Their death began when the alliance between western resource barons and southern democrats (ie segregationists) began with Nixon. Trade policy, financial sector consolidation, offshoring of industrial economy dug the grave.
I grew up in a beautiful northeast rural community. It’s a shell of what it was when I was a child. All of the dairy operations are gone, and most of the full time farms will cease operations when the owners retire. The economy runs on social security, public assistance, government workers commuting up to 90 miles away, and a couple of small industrial operations. Nobody with any ability will stick around, and that has nothing to do with people trying to escape life in Central America.