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Multiple Texas Farms Shut Down After ‘Almost 100%’ Of Workforce Vanishes Overnight | animalplanethq.com (animalplanethq.com)

submitted 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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The reason is simple: an increase in immigration enforcement, including high-profile ICE raids, shook Texas farm workers to their core. The news filtered fast that workers—regardless of legal status—chose safety over a salary.

Farmers, who had been working with their crews for decades, described the loss as “devastating” and “unprecedented.” This is alarming as most farms are founded upon immigrant labor, both legal and illegal, creating a domino effect for the food system as a whole.

. . . When farm workers vanish, the effects are felt far beyond the fields. Livestock is untended, crops go unpicked, food production declines, and food prices dramatically increase. In Texas alone, where specialty vegetables and fruits must be hand-picked, worker shortages jeopardize entire harvest seasons.

This results in fewer foods on grocery store shelves, higher prices for families nationwide, and a greater reliance on imports. Threads on Reddit and YouTube are already predicting price hikes and empty produce shelves.

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[–] [email protected] 47 points 4 days ago (3 children)

Mark my words Republicans will turn to using convict labor to harvest crops before they ever turn on Trump or admit any faults.

Step1: Round up undocumented immigrants and criminals.

Step2: Put them in prison for “crimes”.

Step3: Profit! Lease them to farms for $1 a day. Since slavery is legal if you are incarcerated. Republicans are going to build an entire underclass of criminals who will do these jobs.

Bonus: None of the brown people or criminals will be able to vote because they are now felons. Farmers will cry and vote Republican if anyone even suggests doing away with the prison industrial system.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 4 days ago (2 children)

So slavery with more steps?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 days ago

Not that many steps really.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 days ago

Always has been

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago (2 children)

It is in our constitution, and we know how they like to cherry pick that.

13th Amendment, Section 1: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

It always amazes me that the amendment made it exactly five words before it put a gigantic loophole in place that has the ability to negate the whole thing.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Yep that is what I was referring to.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (2 children)

That sounds realistic except how do you rent out slaves from Alligator Alcatraz. It’s not exactly commuting distance to any Texan farms?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago

Maube we should start calling it Alligator Auschwitz and have "Work sets you free!" emblazoned in neon over the entrance.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Alligator Alcatraz is just the first. Republican governors will be tripping over themselves to build concentration camps to supply slave labor other states industries.

[–] [email protected] 118 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (12 children)

Phase 2: Prison labor

It also carries the side “benefit” of getting farm owners (and, indirectly, anyone who cares about being able to eat food) complicit in and supportive of the “person who didn’t do anything wrong -> detention” pipeline as it ramps up and expands.

You heard it here first.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 5 days ago (3 children)

I have been predicting the return of slavery wide scale via prisoners for years.

[–] [email protected] 35 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It's already been going on, now it will just increase in scale. The ICE detainees are being used for labor in the detention centers for fuck's sake! At least prisoners are directly exempt in the law for being convicted of a crime (however corrupted the concept might be), detainees waiting for processing aren't convicted of shit.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Predicting? I mean.....you're a little late, bub. That shit's been happening since the 80s. Blame Reagan.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 days ago (2 children)

No, that's phase 3. Phase 2 is foreclosures, bankruptcy, and buying at insanely discounted rates. THEN it's ~~slave~~prison labor.

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[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 days ago

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

Even "better", only people with the right connections will have access to this slave labour, so only very wealthy or very Fascist farmers will get their harvests harvested.

Win, win, win for Fascism in the US.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago

Phase 3: Expansion of laws to criminalise any vauge behaviour the govt decides is unacceptable.

When everyone is guilty, you can extort the funded class to look the other way and exploit the unfunded class by imprisonment and forced Labor. The legal system will be saturated by arrests for 'disorderly conduct', 'resistimg arrest' and 'anti-governmemt activities' faster than the courts can keep up with tossing out bogus charges. If you have money,you post bail and try really hard to behave yourself and not rock the boat. If you don't have money, it's off to the work farms for you.

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[–] [email protected] 16 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago)

[–] [email protected] 36 points 5 days ago (2 children)

It's too bad that I don't give a fuck about farmers who voted to arrest their workforce. Put on a cowboy hat and harvest your produce yourself. This is what you wanted.

If you didn't notice, I also hate cowboys.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 4 days ago

I thought I was the only one who thought this. I've never met someone wearing a cowboy hat who had integrity.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

what about food security?

isnt the us even a net exporter?

[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 days ago

[–] [email protected] 65 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I wonder how many of these farmers in Texas voted for Trump? My guess is the majority of them. You reap what you sow.

[–] [email protected] 47 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Actually this year is "Nobody reaps what you've sown and it rots in the field" but that's not as succinct.

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[–] [email protected] 45 points 5 days ago (2 children)

They voted for this.

Let them figure it out.

If you own property, start a garden. You’re likely going to need it.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago

" you vote for what i campaigned, on deal with it"-trump

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[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 days ago (1 children)

So MAGA isn't about the US being self reliant on produce and products after all?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago

No, they are just racist schmucks, just like we suspected

[–] [email protected] 17 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Who could have seen this coming.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 days ago

They were totally blindsided

[–] [email protected] 35 points 5 days ago (2 children)

I'm sure there are plenty of Republicans willing to take a job for shit pay that is back breaking and dangerous right?

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[–] [email protected] 28 points 5 days ago (3 children)

So that was written by AI, right?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It really felt like it, but it has a human’s name on the byline, fwiw. And there were some “rounded corners” that made me think a person edited it a fair bit.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago

human’s name on the byline

In a different magazine they used human names for their AI. Turned out the profile pics came from ThesePeopleDoNotExist

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago

You telling me that "Animal planet HQ" might not be a reliable political news source?

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Did anyone else get ai vibes while reading the article? Idk if it's just me but the writing seemed so generic like something chat gpt spits out.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago

Yes.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Hope it hurts.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

If anything, this hopefully illuminates to all Americans how much of our labor is provided by the periphery.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago

Texas can survive all on its own!

[–] [email protected] 10 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Who needs food anyway?

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

I think ICE wellness farms will find the guards being murdered and the slaves being armed.

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