The Trump administration keeps failing farmers

Their motives are always suspect, certainly, but mostly it’s just sheer incompetence. There are likely still plenty of people in the Labor Department who could get this done, but that’s not being allowed to happen.

In June, as the Trump administration faced backlash from farmers and agriculture officials over its mass deportation effort stripping farms of employees, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer presented a solution: the new Office of Immigration Policy.

The office would slash red tape, including easing the process for farmers to access workers on temporary labor visas. Instead of jumping through hoops with three government agencies, employers would apply through a single portal, Chavez-DeRemer promised…

But about eight months after the new office was created, the Labor Department is struggling to deliver on its stated goals, according to internal emails obtained by Investigate Midwest through a public records request. - Investigate Midwest

Rural areas could suffer critical shortages of immigrant workers

This gets into some of the longer-term issues.

In other words, it’s not likely the government is about to reform immigration policy or open the floodgates to a new wave of workers anytime soon.

And yet math may trump campaign rhetoric. Baby Boomers are leaving the workforce in droves, and the generations following them are smaller. At the same time, these retirees are entering a phase of life where they will soon need more assistance and medical care, while senior facilities already struggle to meet the needs of the population.

Under this pressure, will we start to argue about the best ways to attract more legal immigrants? It’s already happening, especially in senior care.

“In the decades to come, migration is likely to be driven largely by the needs of destination countries, which will compete for a shrinking pool of qualified workers,” a 2023 report by the World Bank concluded. - Barn Raiser

Drug-based deportations up, even when the drug is no longer illegal

You can click to the actual report from the linked webpage.

A new joint report from Human Rights Watch and the Drug Policy Alliance shows thousands of people are being deported every year for drug offenses that in many cases no longer exist under state laws, harming and separating immigrant families.

Punitive federal immigration laws separate families, destabilize communities, and terrorize noncitizens, all while overdose deaths have risen and drugs have become more potent and available. - Drug Policy Alliance

A key point regarding the immigration situation

This is not about Biden-bashing. He inherited a terrible mess. Even if near-perfect measures are taken, it's going to be a while. And certainly corporate "news" media is back to pandering to the conservative-leaning older people that are its shrinking base. But this is important information.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) order Trump invoked, known as Title 42 after the section of U.S. Code dealing with public health, allows for temporary entry suspensions, which U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has used to expel any migrant, without screening for human trafficking or fear of return. An agreement with Mexico’s government allows the U.S. to expel Mexicans and Central Americans across the border, but other nationals are immediately deported to their country of origin. Those with humanitarian visas or residency in Mexico are also sent to Mexico.

Biden has kept the Title 42 order in place...

Most public-health experts say that Title 42 is a bogus health order that does little to stop the spread of COVID-19...

The main difference in Biden’s implementation is that border officials are no longer deporting unaccompanied children under Title 42. That decision, combined with confusion about Biden’s border policies among migrants, has led to a dramatic increase in the number of unaccompanied children taken into custody, transferred to the refugee office, and placed with a sponsor. In February, shelters received more than 7,000 unaccompanied children, double the number accepted in February 2020. - The American Prospect

MN-01: Ignorant, bigoted drivel from Rep. Hagedorn

Rep. Jim Hagedorn (R-MN) won a very close race in 2016. For the most part he hasn’t made a lot of noise since then. But a lot of people knew that it was just a matter of time. These are both from an apparent doozy of a recent public address.

“Agriculture is a national security issue,” he said, according to The Globe. Hagedorn grew up on a grain and livestock farm near Truman and serves on the House Ag Committee.

In fact, it was because of agriculture, he said, that “nobody [in America] goes to sleep at night wondering if they’ll be able to feed their families.”

Jim? Jim?

As wondrous and bountiful as America’s yield is, it still routinely fails to feed everyone in the country. It's estimated that 1 in 8 Americans are “food insecure,” a polite way of saying they often go without. That translates to roughly 40 million people, 12 million of them children. - City Pages

And:

“What’s going on at the border is an emergency,” Hagedorn said. He added that Democrats in Congress are “turning our border patrol agents into having to care for children and families.”

He claimed that 5 to 6 million people are in America undocumented because they have overstayed their visas. He said many of these individuals are “from terrorist countries” and that this phenomenon is what caused 9/11. - The Globe