Why?

Because cheap immigrant labor is the backbone of this country in many ways, especially when it comes to harvesting and processing our food supply. They could stop immigration tomorrow if they wanted to. $10,000 per person per day fine to agriculture companies. They don't want to. They are hate-filled people who want the poorest most vulnerable people to suffer. Just like Jesus would have wanted.

I find it interesting how the same political crowd that pushes hardest for workers’ rights and higher minimum wages will also turn around and seriously argue that illegal immigrants are needed (to be paid under the table below minimum wage), otherwise food prices would spike.

I'm stating the reality of the world. I would be happy if the lowest paid workers in our country got paid a living wage. However, you know this, you're just upset.

This is kind of an interesting thread. thrawa8387336 says "There would be turbo-inflation" as justification for continuing exploiting workers.

Then both liberals and conservatives accuse thrawa8387336 of being a member of the opposite group, due to how bad thrawa8387336's argument sounds.

> and seriously argue that illegal immigrants are needed

Nothing GP wrote suggests that. Listing some realities and effects doesn't mean you approve of them.

I know, that’s why I said political crowd rather than directing it at them specifically. I’ve seen it come up often recently.

It's incoherent, just like the corporate claim that we need moar immigration and moar imports to keep prices down at Walmart, even if that means none of us make enough to buy anything. Both sides have to dress up their real motives, one pretending to care about the immigrant and the other pretending to care about the consumer. Both are lying.

Yes, the side that is fighting for immigrant rights and due process is lying about caring about immigrants. Excellent point.

> fighting for immigrant rights

The side that's trying to maintain a population of illegal immigrants and explains that this is necessarily because it is necessary to have a pool of workers willing to work for illegal wages.

Republicans. Republicans want an exploitable underclass. They wouldn't have worked so hard at protecting large employers of undocumented workers (like Trump) or worked so hard to kill compromise legislation that would have moved the needle on enforcement.

Trump needed immigration to go unsolved in 2024 to have something to run on.

Liberals may make the point that removing millions of workers from the country would be bad for the economy, but you're being downright disingenuous if you suggest that is the primary reason people are upset about the raids and deportation.

It must be those republican business owners out there throwing rocks at the police because their illegal workforce is being deported.

You assert that because some violent elements of the anti-ICE protests exist, that business owners cannot have any motivation to maintain an exploitable underclass of workers by not implementing e-Verify and not passing reform legislation multiple times in the past 20 years.

What the parent comment meant is that business owners love the illegal immigration status quo so they can rip workers off overtime and wages because those workers can't complain to the government.

Your analysis is simply off. The side pushing for worker and immigrant rights are not saying "please keep immigrants here so we can exploit them more".

transcriptase was likely referring more to thrawa8387336's comment than to thinkingtoilet's comment. thrawa8387336's comment says "There would be turbo-inflation" as justification for continuing to exploit workers.