Brooke Rollins: Americans Can Replace Deported Farm Workers
By: Alex Griffing (Mediaite)
this is pretty wild
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
President Donald Trump's Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins spoke to reporters on Tuesday after meeting with several Republican governors and promised that there would be no amnesty for illegal agricultural workers in the U.S. — adding that Americans on Medicaid should replace them.
MAGA influencers fumed at Rollins over the weekend and on Monday, suggesting that she was behind a movement to pressure Trump to grant amnesty to farm workers. Charlie Kirksounded the alarm Monday, saying, "They are pushing him for mass legalization of illegals. Now, President Donald Trump, of course, would never push for amnesty, but President Donald Trump said something at a rally on July 3rd, and my phone lit up like you wouldn't imagine."
Kirk was referring to Trump telling a rally in Iowa that "We got to work with the farmers and people that have hotels and leisure properties, too. We're going to work with them. And we're going to work very strong and smart."
Rollins was asked about the administration's policy toward farm workers, and answered, "The second question, where we are on farm labor, a little bit earlier, but what I will say is that Lori Chavez-DeRemer is our Secretary of Labor. And the H2A visa program, all of the programs that ensure to moving in seasonal ag workers are under Secretary Chavez-DeRemer. She has been working around the clock with her team."
"I think we'll probably hear a little more about this today, and the conversations will continue. But I can't underscore enough. There will be no amnesty. The mass deportations continue, but in a strategic way, and we move the workforce towards automation and 100% American participation, which, again, with 34 million people, able-bodied adults on Medicaid, we should be able to do that fairly quickly. Thank you," Rollins concluded.
Rollins made similar comments at other points during the presser, adding, "Ultimately, the answer on this is automation, also some reform within the current governing structure. And then also, when you think about, there are 34 million able-bodied adults in our Medicaid program. There are plenty of workers in America."
Many on the right were quick to highlight Rollins's statement and credited Kirk for Rollins's promise that there would be "no amnesty."
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Every day now Trump and his top officials contradict each other. They are clowns, but with quite a capacity to damage our society.
from tarriffs to immigration to about anything, Trump knows not how to be truthful. Lies are what he is most consistent on
Less than 1% of illegals are farm workers. Farm work doesn't drive illegal immigration.
what percentage of farm workers are illegal?
bing copilot AI
Is bing a practitioner of modern Math? It's math isn't mathing.
32 are US
7 are naturalized
19 are authorized
____
that equals 58, so how does bing come up with 44 to 50......it pulls its facts out of its ass.
I have no problem with them working the fields at harvest............like they used to when I was a kid. This was the routine.
Come for harvest, do your work, get paid, go home and share your $$$ with the family..............and of course your own economy. Lather, rinse, repeat annually.
Then a few decided to stay............then a few hundred more...........then a few thousand more and then we have what we have today. Millions. And......... A loss in desire to be a sovereign nation it would seem.
Prove otherwise that the stats listed are false.
We'll wait.
Guess that's why TPTB made sure we knew AI references would be handled like opinion pieces. After all, input from several sources FEED the data AI uses
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according to your math 42 % of US farm workers are illegal immigrants. Happy now?
Do you think you are going to get Medicaid recipients to replace 42% of US farmworkers?
Source said 44-50%.
Now there is an idea. Gonna have to sort out the truly unable and put the rest to work. I don't care if it's four hours a day.
Why not? over 1/3 of Californias population is on Medicaid, 15.3 million as of Oct. of 22, surely there are able bodied farm workers in that group.
So what? It should be 100%.
What part of that is bad? If they stay here, they spend their money in our economy.
Our sovereignty is just fine.
Some don't make it to home. Have you ever heard the song "Deportee"? Woody wrote it almost 80 years ago.
Plane Wreck at Los Gatos
(also known as "Deportee")
Words by Woody Guthrie, Music by Martin Hoffman
The crops are all in and the peaches are rott'ning ,
The oranges piled in their creosote dumps;
They're flying 'em back to the Mexican border
To pay all their money to wade back again
Goodbye to my Juan, goodbye, Rosalita,
Adios mis amigos, Jesus y Maria;
You won't have your names when you ride the big airplane,
All they will call you will be "deportees"
My father's own father, he waded that river,
They took all the money he made in his life;
My brothers and sisters come working the fruit trees,
And they rode the truck till they took down and died.
Some of us are illegal, and some are not wanted,
Our work contract's out and we have to move on;
Six hundred miles to that Mexican border,
They chase us like outlaws, like rustlers, like thieves.
We died in your hills, we died in your deserts,
We died in your valleys and died on your plains.
We died 'neath your trees and we died in your bushes,
Both sides of the river, we died just the same.
The sky plane caught fire over Los Gatos Canyon,
A fireball of lightning, and shook all our hills,
Who are all these friends, all scattered like dry leaves?
The radio says, "They are just deportees"
Is this the best way we can grow our big orchards?
Is this the best way we can grow our good fruit?
To fall like dry leaves to rot on my topsoil
And be called by no name except "deportees"?
Why would you wish that on anybody?
Why would I wish healthcare coverage on anybody? You have a problem with that?
yes, I have a problem with wishing everyone was so poor they had to rely on healthcare of the last resort.
That 1/3 of your state is on medicaid is a crisis.
What does that even mean? Do you have any idea what you’re talking about? It sure doesn’t seem like it.
Based on what?
What part of it don't you understand?
Do you have any idea what you’re talking about?
Yes, I've actually had to supervise the medical care of people on medicaid. To put it nicely, the doctors who accept it aren't the ones who graduated top of the class. It's not great when I'm the one who had to tell doctors medications were contraindicated and get "oh yeah, good catch" when it's pointed out.
Based on what?
Are you happy being surrounded by so much poverty? Seems bad to me. But to each their own.
Well, it should be relatively easy for you to produce a 'report' of some kind testifying and supporting your extraordinary claim of 'discount' physicians that accept Medicaid. . . I could not find it. . . maybe I used the wrong search term/phrase. Do share the link or the wording that will make it "pop" up for the rest of us. . .or just admit you are trashing the medical profession out of spite for people on Medicaid.
And, here we are. . . led. . .by the silence to think that republicans do not engage in class warfare. . . .
That sounds like a doctor problem, not an insurance problem. All kinds of doctors take all kinds of insurance. And some really good ones don’t accept any at all.
There are many problems in healthcare that need fixing. And in my opinion, one of those things is that an American citizen should have a basic level of coverage available that he never has to sign up for or pay into. It probably won’t cover all the fancy stuff, especially at first, as we make reforms. For that matter, really good insurance doesn’t cover everything. But having that basic health security for all citizens is a goal worthy of America.
It's not even a doctor problem, because we would have factual evidence we could point to by now of the failure of doctors to properly diagnose and treat their patients (on Medicaid). The blanket statement by a group member smacks of anecdotal rhetoric meant to distort and implicate medical doctors and their patients as subpar. It is divisive and sickening in its own right.
Doctor mistakes are the third leading cause of death in America. I’m going to go out on a limb and say the better ones kill fewer people. If you’ve never dealt with doctors whose practice is dependent on Medicaid patients, you really have no idea how dicey things can get, because there’s a difference in quality from the doctors down to the support staff.
Medicaid doesn’t pay as well as private insurance and the effects are obvious.
The article linked is from 2011 - fourteen years ago during the Obama first presidency.
Is the Heritage Foundation right-wing biased? Is the Heritage Foundation mixed in with Project 2025? Please supply an answer.
What is your source for that wild claim? Is it “trust me bro?”
The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) publishes the top causes of death, and “doctor mistakes” doesn’t even make the Top 10.
Mortality in the United States, 2023
The top 10 causes of death in the US are, in order:
Heart disease, Cancer, Unintentional injuries, Stroke, Chronic lower respiratory diseases, Alzheimer’s, Diabetes, Kidney Disease, Liver Disease, and Covid.
Your Heritage article doesn’t tell us anything about the level of care. Even if the outcomes are accurate, it doesn’t say anything about the patients. One thing I am confident of ,though, is that someone with no insurance at all will likely die a lot easier than someone on Medicaid. And I never said anything about doing away with private insurers, anyway.
does that mean you think doctors who accept Tricare are terrible doctors? Because I have Tricare and the providers I see also take Medicaid and Medicare patients.
I have had quite a bit of interactions with doctors in the past 4 years. A heart attack, then a bad fall, then heart valve replacement ,then a blood infection . On Christmas day in 2021 I had a nosebleed , while in the hospital waiting for stents, that lasted four hours. The staff had to call a doctor from his home on Christmas day to come and shove this big sponge on a stick up my nose to stop the bleeding.
All of my doctors have been excellent in my opinion. The guy that did the tavr valve replacement was so cool and confident I had no choice but to accept it as routine. He was a Korean American. My cardiologist, graduated from Harvard and Stanford medical school is Chinese American. Most of the doctors in big city hospitals seem to be people of color. These are dedicated , meticulous, people.
I hope the same exists in rural hospitals but I have a feeling big city hospital treatment is better.
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AI produced sources are treated like any other source. A source is simply one data point weighed by the perceived credibility.
In this case, another source (USDA) holds:
Do they even comprehend the words that they hear or read? Sounds to me like she's saying we're going to continue to deport immigrants and we're going to grab up your puny grandmother and put her to work picking lettuce
And if she doesn’t pick fast enough, the overseer will bust out the whip.
Used to pick tobacco and work in the strawberry fields as summer jobs when I was young. Wouldn't wish either on my worst enemy. Good luck getting non-immigrants to do this work.
Daddy made sure each of us hoed cotton and hauled hay and harvested fruits and vegetables as motivation to study hard and stay in school.
I had to help put up hay, work in the garden, mow grass, and all kinds of stuff to motivate me to get an education where I could work in air conditioning
32% of crop farmworkers are U.S.-born
Saw that stat only 68% to go. Still not an enjoyable way to make a buck
Mmmm, we're a hop skip and jump away from AI replacing entry level white collar jobs and AI powered robotics replacing entry level production jobs, yet y'all still seemed to be worried about whose going to pick your tomatoes. Hilarious...
Are you going to pick them when you get replaced by AI?
Absolutely, not only do I pick my own tomatoes I mow my own grass. Crazy,... right?
Hmmm...let me guess you have a small back yard garden with maybe 10 plants? And your yard is maybe an acre and you have a riding lawn mower? Yeah I can do that too
But I'm not talking about your own personal property. I'm talking about commercial farms and commercial real estate
I knew it would come (down) to this as the plan. It was not hard to see. Now then, just wait until the administration makes plain its true intent to 'stroke with a pen' policy that orders Americans to go do field work. These. . . conservatives don't miss any opportunity to return this country to its past shame. It won't be long before their is an insistence that blacks and other minorities assume the 'position.'
I suggest that MAGA supporters. . . big on making 'work' for select peoples. . . get their butts into the fields and pick a-lot of something and do it quick! Including this. . . woman. . .with the big mouth!
Has she talked to Trump? Because he has already said they should be allowed to work.
Why do conservatives fret over this so much? Immigrants - legal or not - have done this work for generations. Who is it hurting, really? I know Brooke Rollins and Charlie Kirk aren’t lining up to pick tomatoes. Maybe they should shut the fuck up and stop pretending this is a problem.
It is their contention that 'everybody' needs a job conservatives can APPROVE. It is not a mistake or new concept that she is proposing to use the poor and needy of this country to pick the crops! This goes back to the hierarchical NATURE conservatives 'flirt' around with as a worldview. For centuries, conservatives have never wanted the country to change from its 'beginning' model. They are. . . unrepentant and unmoved by all the human and civil rights actions of the past 50 or so years. The irony is the conservatives be like: "Tell me, about blacks and other minorities treatment inside of the last 50 years. . . " and I have to remind them that they have OPPOSED, obfuscated, lied, cheated, and stole from every change that has been attempted and succeeded in the last 50 plus years!
Nothing much about MAGA supporters has changed from the extremes of 1776! (They were not too keen on those constitutional modifications after the Bill of Rights (first ten) either.)
We humor conservatives at our loss. They do not change. They do not wish to change. Conservative extremists highly probably can not effectively change.
Here is the ha-ha! These conservatives will use Medicaid recipients and either:
1.) Offer them no additional assistance beyond "in-kind" services.
2.) Will pay minimum wage or 'reduced.'
How many on NT would pick fruit for a living? I think I can guess the answer.
picking fruit would be a cake walk compared to what I did for decades
Have done that, as well has hoeing bean fields. Now I'm involved with the automation of harvesting crops which, in this area, has already replaced the immigrant workers. AI and more automation is the key to the future of food production. Actually we Americans can take care of this.
I doubt that you did the picking and hoeing for the hours and speed that the immigrants are required to do. But automation is definitely on its way for the field work, and maybe robots can be made to pick fruit off the trees.
Yeah, I believe about five years in the summers during my later school years, hoeing fields, picking cucumbers, and putting up hay at first on the family farm then other farmers in the area. Picking cucumbers is actually very lucrative, you would get half what the farmer gets for what you pick, so you would pick quickly and fill as many bags as possible.
We're getting ready for a new serf class
Tarnishing the memory of Reagan.
Without healthcare what's gonna happen as these Medicaid recipients start falling like flies dead in the fields from heat exhaustion and strokes?
Is the government forcing Agriculture Businesses to pay minimum wage or higher? Are they forcing these businesses to pay for the workers healthcare?
Where will they live? There are not enough Port-A- Potty units to serve American workers.
You actually think they will work the kind of hours migrant workers with green cards do?
Migrant workers don't get breaks.
It's already an inhumane system and farmers have already stated that they have tried paying slight above minimum wage to lure American workers and none of them last very long. Sometimes they leave after a few hours in the heat and never collect their wages.
There are no lunch rooms for storing a lunch with air conditioning or indoor toilets.
How long until Big Agriculture fights back against this insanity?
While this administration may go after migrants as low hanging fruit to suit a harsh political agenda, but Businesses that followed the law and have LEGAL migrant workers with green cards should be fighting back.
Without healthcare what's gonna happen as these Medicaid recipients start falling like flies dead in the fields from heat exhaustion and strokes?
In their minds, that's one way to take care of the lazy "social welfare" and SS recipients. You know, permanently getting people off the government teat. And the money saved can go towards paying for more tax cuts. And when they drop dead, just bury them at the end of the row. May make great compost and fertilizer and eventually gain some more crop.
Having picked and worked the fields, I can go back, right after they do.
The issue for those using this. . . strategy, is eventually the human instinct for survival will kick in and people will simply become unreliable field workers without healthcare (see emergency room visits increasing)—and alive.
AI can learn to run an automatic picking machine.
in 1977 I worked for a company that made packing house equipment, they had a prototype apple picking machine that one man drove. Back then, They said it would cost too much to develop and sell but it was possible to make such a machine.
With technology we have now and the labor conditions; it is coming.
And here we are presently, with republicans DEMANDING that women 'made' more children. . . the question: For what exactly? At this rate, we have too many mouths to feed, get healthy, and prosper now.
When the world of technology out does itself it will be interesting to see what people do when they have 'ultimate' idol time on their hands. Just think: The one about "Idol time being. . . "
" At this rate, we have too many mouths to feed, get healthy, and prosper now."
I have been saying overpopulation is a big problem
I am not suggesting that our country is overpopulated (we have space), I am suggesting that we have a large grouping of people in the country unwilling to help care for and are undermining those who exist already in 'regular' scenarios.