this post was submitted on 16 Jun 2025
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No. They will close down, cut their losses and do something else. While letting everything they grew rot on the ground.
How? He's attacking minimum wage jobs.
In florida years ago, when e-verify was being pushed, and tomato farm operations had to verify social security numbers for their employees, they didnt start paying legal/competitive wages- they just left tomatoes on the vines to rot - and then took subsidies and tax breaks for operating those farms at a loss. some agriculture companies just got out of the tomato business altogether.
employers at the largest levels don't care about construction, or farming or whatever- they care about profit. the investors don't care about the work their companies perform- if a sector becomes significantly less profitable because of a lack of immigrant workers, they don't just take a hit to their profits and move on, they pull their investments and find another business to invest in. there will plainly be less construction firms, less farms, less local restaurants able to compete with the chains.
the money in this economy is hoarded by the upper class- they can control how businesses operate, and because the rest of us have limited buying power, our choices are dictated more by what we can afford than what we need or want. demand in this economy has power, but it is easily overwhelmed by control of the supply by purely profit motivated investors.
they dont want to make less money selling higher priced tomatoes, and at the same time, we dont have the available income to budget for higher priced tomatoes, from the largest or smaller farms, and will just shift spending to other cheap food we can afford in our budgets. lots of businesses will close but the investors- who most elected officials serve- will just invest elsewhere, which is why they don't care about the impact on the rest of us. large operations will gobble up the failing smaller ones, consumer options will continue to shrink, and the people we've been exploiting for their labor will lose their source of income.
there will be no industry-wide rise in low wages, just diminishing supply. eventually the tariffs will go, and then supply will be replaced by (even cheaper) foreign production.
Unfortunately, smaller farmers are nearly extinct due to fed refusal to enforce anti-trust law and Bork (may he rest in piss) ruling that consolidation magically improved the customer experience.
In short, no.
The profit motive does not allow for this.
There is a reason red states are trying to choose back child labor laws.
In all honesty, this will probably result in more prison labor and a greater profit motive to lock up more people.
I didn't downvote you but in general it's just going to kill industries and make shit more expensive.
Not in general, no. Likely the opposite, I think, but there are so many complex interactions I wouldn't trust anyone giving a definitive answer.
In general, undocumented immigrants do work that citizens are unwilling to do, and they're generally paid so little that they produce a lot more value than they're paid in wages. So, for example, produce prices will likely skyrocket when they can't get undocumented immigrants picking their produce for cheap. This will squeeze wages up the entire supply chain and, due to inflation, real wages across the whole economy. This will also make American produce less competitive internationally, reducing exports.
The labour instability will also increase business uncertainty, which will reduce investment, which will further reduce economic growth.
Sure, there are a few people who might benefit, but mostly this will just mean there's less total economic output. If people can't hire a house cleaner, they'll just have a messier house and get it cleaned less frequently (or do it themselves, potentially in lieu of doing other paid work). Are you or anyone you know going to move rural to pick lettuce? Or clean houses? Or sew clothing? (Etc. across all the "undesirable" jobs across the economy.)