Dem
47
GOP
53
Secretary of Agriculture Brooke Rollins earned a degree in agricultural development from Texas A&M in 1994. Thereafter, she spent her professional life working at a law firm, clerking for a federal judge, serving in (appointed) political office and, for 15 years, running a right-wing think tank. If this sounds to you like the résumé of someone who is technically qualified to be Secretary of Agriculture, but who hasn't had any real connection to that field in 30 years and is therefore out of touch, you would be right.
The Greek hero Achilles had only one vulnerable heel, the one that he was held by while being dipped into the River Styx. The Trump administration's immigration policy, by contrast, has numerous Achilles' heels, any one of which could come to bite Team Donald in the rear end. Among the biggest is that several key sectors of the economy, like agriculture, rely on cheap, undocumented labor to keep things running. Without the undocumented laborers, the meat and the milk and the crops either wouldn't make it to market, or they'd be vastly more expensive when they got to the market.
Already, the effects of the Trumpian approach to immigration are coming home to roost. There are many workers in the agriculture sector who are undocumented. There are also many workers in the agriculture sector who are legally in the United States, thanks to work visas, asylum applications that have been granted, or even jus soli citizenship, but who are clever enough to realize those things are no guarantee against being grabbed by men in masks and whisked off to a prison in some foreign country. And so, workers are now failing to show up for their shifts on farms, at dairies, at meatpacking plants, etc.
Needless to say, this is not an easy issue to fix, much less to fix RIGHT NOW. And in many cases, of course, if the issue is not solved RIGHT NOW, then product ends up permanently lost. You can either harvest the strawberries the week they are ripe, to take one example, or you can let them rot. Prices are already trending upward at grocery stores, and that's just a month or so into the new regime of border enforcement. The pandemic taught everyone a bit about how supply chains work, and how it takes 3-4 months for disruptions to fully manifest.
And that brings us to Fantasyland. Inasmuch as Donald Trump is never responsible for any of the effects of any of his policies, the troubles in the agricultural sector are eventually going to land at Rollins' feet. Yesterday, she and her staff staged an event designed to proactively respond to that challenge. And speaking to reporters, the Secretary stood firm and said there would be no amnesty for migrant workers. However, she said she expects to turn this problem into an opportunity, since there will now be plenty of work for the people who are now required to get a job in order to keep their Medicaid coverage.
As is so often the case when politicians—particularly members of the Trump administration—say things like this, it raises the question: Are THEY stupid, or is it just that they think that WE are? First, the wages paid for farm work aren't going to be acceptable to the vast, vast majority of Americans. Second, this is hard, hard work. The overlap between "people who really need Medicaid" and "people who are physically able to do farm labor" is very small. Third, and finally, it's not a secret that the point of the BBB was not to compel Medicaid recipients (many of whom already spend their days as caregivers, or else doing other unpaid labor) to get a job, it was to kick people out of the system entirely, so as to free up money for tax cuts.
In the end, the administration has a real problem looming ahead, and little time in which to solve it. It can certainly go with the "Rollins Plan," and then end up in a crisis when eggs jump to $10/dozen in a few months. Alternatively, it can adjust its policies, and find a way to keep the agricultural workers on the job—something Trump himself has hinted at. The first problem here is that it will be difficult to be harsh in some areas and not in others, with the goal of communicating the dual messages of "we are cracking down hard on immigrants" and "immigrants, don't worry, we won't come round you up at your farm job." The second problem is that it would divide the base, many of whom are Stephen Miller-like fanatics, and have no use for lenience, no matter how beneficial it might be for the country.
Incidentally, the Trump administration brought the immigration-enforcement reality TV show to Los Angeles again on Monday, as heavily armed immigration-enforcement officers rolled up to the city's MacArthur Park in SWAT-like armored vehicles to conduct a sweep of the area. The officers did not manage to detain a single person, reportedly, but they did disrupt several summer camps. So, it was certainly worth the time and effort. After all, everyone knows that the lanyards that 10-year-olds weave are a gateway to teenage embroidery or sculpture or scrapbooking. In any case, the raid didn't get a fraction of the attention that previous ICE raids have gotten, so it may be that we're moving into "dog bites man" territory, and that the most important thing the Trump administration wants on the immigration front—publicity—is going to be increasingly hard to come by going forward. (Z)