Labor Dept warns Immigration Policies Threaten Stability of the Domestic Food Supply

CRAZY_CAT_WOMAN said:

I'm not against prisoners doing the harvest. For the price of their upkeep.

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Not a terrible idea, but media outlets would portray it as racism if minority prisoners were photographed working side by side in fields.

rjs330 said:

Yes it does. And thats wrong. The left supports it as much as the right and vice versa. As I said the RIGHT is the one that is wanting the illegals sent home and we recognize what that means for food prices. The left does NOT want them sent home. They want them here because it means food prices will stay lower.

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The left wants them here to do the work, but they want them here free from exploitation.

rjs330 said:

What I dispute is the broad brush youve been painting with when it comes to the right and the carefully worded separation with the left. I think this is something us non-politicians could find common ground on. We could demand that the use of illegal labor be stopped. And programs be set up to allow for legal labor to take over which course would allow for migrant workers to be here for a time and earn a fair wage.

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Yes, that pretty much sums up the Left's position. Now all we have to is get MAGA on board with it.

Landon Caeli said:

Not a terrible idea, but media outlets would portray it as racism if minority prisoners were photographed working side by side in fields.

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Right. Racist slave labor is not fashionable any more.

Landon Caeli said:

Not a terrible idea, but media outlets would portray it as racism if minority prisoners were photographed working side by side in fields.

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Once again, anything but having the farmers face rising wages for labor.

Desk trauma said:

Once again, anything but having the farmers face rising wages for labor.

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Well not quite. Small farmers should feel the rising cost of labor so they will have to sell out to corporate ag.

wing2000 said:

Without prompt action

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Raise wages.

wing2000 said:

IMO, it won't make a difference. Younger people look down on jobs that have historically been carried out by migrant labor.

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Meh, raise the wages to the level of market demand.

Larniavc said:

Raise wages.

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Raise wages???? That's MARXISM!!!

Larniavc said:

Meh, raise the wages to the level of market demand.

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Have to raise the working conditions too.

Richard T said:

I still think the plan might be purposed to depress land prices so much that the hedge funds can buy the farms on the cheap. This is consistent with what happened in other sectors of real estate.

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Farm land is already dirt cheap. Even the people who own the land outright have a tough go of making it profitable.

wing2000 said:

The Labor Department warned in an obscure document filed with the Federal Register last week that “the near total cessation of the inflow of illegal aliens” is threatening “the stability of domestic food production and prices for U.S. consumers.”

Also, contradicting comments made by Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins that the U.S. farm workforce will become “100 percent American” as an effect of mass deportations, the Labor Department noted that Americans are not willing to step into farm work and lack the skills to fill agricultural jobs that undocumented immigrants are abandoning.

“The Department concludes that qualified and eligible U.S. workers will not make themselves available in sufficient numbers,” the agency said.

Doc:
"...the Department concludes, based on all available evidence and studies, that immediate reform to the H-2A program's minimum wage policy, or the AEWRs, is necessary to avoid imminent widespread disruption across the U.S. agricultural sector. Without prompt action, agricultural employers will face severe labor shortages, resulting in disruption to food production, higher prices, and reduced access for U.S. consumers, particularly to fresh fruit and vegetables. Further, the Department concludes that qualified and eligible U.S. workers will not make themselves available in sufficient numbers, even at current wage levels, to fill the significant labor shortage in the agricultural sector. As discussed in detail below, the reforms contained in this IFR of the H-2A program's wage policy are urgently needed to restore the usability of the H-2A program and to provide a practical, lawful workforce alternative to illegal aliens. These changes ensure that agricultural employers offer fair wages to legally authorized workers—consistent with wages paid in comparable farm and non-farm jobs—while maintaining compliance with immigration law and supporting the stability of the nation's food supply.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2025/10/11/immigration-crackdown-food-prices/

Imagine that? Americans are unwilling to harvest their own food.

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They should not bring children in to work. Especially with child molesters on pot farms.

Landon Caeli said:

Here, I want to put kids to work. 7th and 8th graders, as well as high school kids.

I was just referencing the women workers during the world wars as an example of American tradition, and why hiring kids isn't outside of normal.

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Yep, I lived where there were crops grown, and the kids would come to make money. They came in bus loads provided by the two large growers.

iluvatar5150 said:

Farm land is already dirt cheap. Even the people who own the land outright have a tough go of making it profitable.

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They want it for data centers. See the links below.

ACCELERATING FEDERAL PERMITTING OF DATA CENTER INFRASTRUCTURE

These plans include artificial intelligence (AI) data centers and infrastructure that powers them, including high‑voltage transmission lines and other equipment. It will be a priority of my Administration to facilitate the rapid and efficient buildout of this infrastructure by easing Federal regulatory burdens.

In addition, my Administration will utilize federally owned land and resources for the expeditious and orderly development of data centers. This usage will be done in a manner consistent with the land’s intended purpose — to be used in service of the prosperity and security of the American people.

………

A Growing Demand for Land: Site Selection for Data Centers

As data centers become the backbone of the digital economy, the decision of where to build them has never been more critical. Rental rates for data centers are projected to increase by 14.5% year over year, according to CBRE, reflecting the growing demand for strategically located land that can support these complex facilities.

Traditionally, data centers have been built on sprawling rural land to minimize costs. Land in rural areas is cheaper, and power is often more available. However, as data center operators seek to move closer to urban hubs, they face higher real estate costs and new logistical challenges.

In contrast, many large-scale data centers are still going up in less densely populated areas like Virginia’s CTZ, where zoning has been proactively designed to address community concerns before development starts. This kind of forward-thinking zoning allows developers to avoid the opposition often seen in more populated areas.

…….

Thirsty for power and water, AI-crunching data centers sprout across the West

With promises of jobs and hopes for tax breaks, server farms are reshaping local grids, plumbing, and politics. Are they a boon for communities, or a burden?

Data centers are remaking local communities and economies around the country, most dramatically in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., but also around the West. These centers, the beating hearts of the internet, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, sprawl over tens or hundreds of thousands of square feet.

This onrushing electronic future means that areas of the West seeking to accumulate data centers need more and more electricity. The growth of artificial intelligence, which uses larger and more complex chips needing far more power, only accelerates the power demand. More transmission lines are needed to get the power to the centers. The share of states’ and communities’ energy consumed by data centers has grown dramatically: In Arizona, they use 7.4 percent of the state’s power, in Oregon 11.4 percent, according to Visual Capitalist.

It’s not just electricity that is needed by these centers, which are now growing to brobdingnagian sizes to accommodate AI’s computing demands. They need significant amounts of water to keep cool, and new ones will need more. The new computer chips that are designed to produce artificial intelligence, like Nvidia’s Blackwell chip, use far more electricity and therefore need more cooling than the older generation of chips. Nvidia is based in Santa Clara.

Red Canary magazine recently reported that the water demand of nearly 60 centers in Phoenix is about 177 million gallons a day – significant, but a fraction of the water used in local agriculture.

All told, the centers are reshaping local grids, plumbing, and politics.

iluvatar5150 said:

Farm land is already dirt cheap. Even the people who own the land outright have a tough go of making it profitable.

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Yes, but if it went into the hands of a certain elite, they could run the crops more like a cartel, or just depend on the government for their subsidies. Either way they win, the rest lose. While this example might be wrong, this is what is wrong with contemporary America. Too much wealth in the hands of a few. I think God is going to correct that though. The USA is currently at the same level of inequality as occurred in 1929 before the crash.

bèlla said:

They want it for data centers. See the links below.

ACCELERATING FEDERAL PERMITTING OF DATA CENTER INFRASTRUCTURE

These plans include artificial intelligence (AI) data centers and infrastructure that powers them, including high‑voltage transmission lines and other equipment. It will be a priority of my Administration to facilitate the rapid and efficient buildout of this infrastructure by easing Federal regulatory burdens.

In addition, my Administration will utilize federally owned land and resources for the expeditious and orderly development of data centers. This usage will be done in a manner consistent with the land’s intended purpose — to be used in service of the prosperity and security of the American people.

………

A Growing Demand for Land: Site Selection for Data Centers

As data centers become the backbone of the digital economy, the decision of where to build them has never been more critical. Rental rates for data centers are projected to increase by 14.5% year over year, according to CBRE, reflecting the growing demand for strategically located land that can support these complex facilities.

Traditionally, data centers have been built on sprawling rural land to minimize costs. Land in rural areas is cheaper, and power is often more available. However, as data center operators seek to move closer to urban hubs, they face higher real estate costs and new logistical challenges.

In contrast, many large-scale data centers are still going up in less densely populated areas like Virginia’s CTZ, where zoning has been proactively designed to address community concerns before development starts. This kind of forward-thinking zoning allows developers to avoid the opposition often seen in more populated areas.

…….

Thirsty for power and water, AI-crunching data centers sprout across the West

With promises of jobs and hopes for tax breaks, server farms are reshaping local grids, plumbing, and politics. Are they a boon for communities, or a burden?

Data centers are remaking local communities and economies around the country, most dramatically in the northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C., but also around the West. These centers, the beating hearts of the internet, cloud computing, and artificial intelligence, sprawl over tens or hundreds of thousands of square feet.

This onrushing electronic future means that areas of the West seeking to accumulate data centers need more and more electricity. The growth of artificial intelligence, which uses larger and more complex chips needing far more power, only accelerates the power demand. More transmission lines are needed to get the power to the centers. The share of states’ and communities’ energy consumed by data centers has grown dramatically: In Arizona, they use 7.4 percent of the state’s power, in Oregon 11.4 percent, according to Visual Capitalist.

It’s not just electricity that is needed by these centers, which are now growing to brobdingnagian sizes to accommodate AI’s computing demands. They need significant amounts of water to keep cool, and new ones will need more. The new computer chips that are designed to produce artificial intelligence, like Nvidia’s Blackwell chip, use far more electricity and therefore need more cooling than the older generation of chips. Nvidia is based in Santa Clara.

Red Canary magazine recently reported that the water demand of nearly 60 centers in Phoenix is about 177 million gallons a day – significant, but a fraction of the water used in local agriculture.

All told, the centers are reshaping local grids, plumbing, and politics.

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That doesn't make any sense. Killing farms en masse just to build datacenters is like using a sledgehammer to swat at mosquitoes. The average data center is roughly the size of a WalMart, which is about a couple acres for the building and maybe another 10-20 for the parking lot. Relative to even modest farms, that's nothing.

And relative to the rest of the cost of building a data center, the land itself is also miniscule. Out in a rural-ish area, $40k/acre is well on the high side in a lot of places, but would still only come out to $1-2m for the whole lot. One 6' tall computer rack could run you that much. Those lots would be more expensive if you're buying in a built-up area, but at that point, you're not trying to buy out the large farms that would be undermined by loss of illegal labor. At most, you're buying out smaller, more froofy places like vineyards or orchards that are set up as attractions. More than likely, those sorts of places have already been under some pressure to sell out to other developers.

Richard T said:

Yes, but if it went into the hands of a certain elite, they could run the crops more like a cartel, or just depend on the government for their subsidies. Either way they win, the rest lose. While this example might be wrong, this is what is wrong with contemporary America. Too much wealth in the hands of a few. I think God is going to correct that though. The USA is currently at the same level of inequality as occurred in 1929 before the crash.

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Huh? The elite could have that land if they wanted it. Like, right now. As a business and as a lifestyle, farming sucks. The pay sucks. The hours suck. Nobody wants to take over the businesses, so they're effectively worthless to anybody but the current owners. The only people making money are the guys with very large operations, which may be sustainable financially, but still have the proprietors living isolated in the middle of nowhere. So, best case scenario, you're alone with your fancy pickup. There are probably thousands, maybe tens of thousands of farmers who'd gladly sell out right now if they could. My dad's in the process of parceling out his property as I type this; the only prospective buyers he has are Amish who've been priced out of Lancaster. For a lot of people, the prospect of something like gas fracking or solar farms looks like a huge windfall, because big corporations pay way more per acre for those sorts of leases than their regular crops would ever yield.

You don't have to own the fields to run the crops like a cartel. All you have to do is own the rest of the processing and production supply chain or the chemicals used to fertilize the crops, which... that ship sailed a long time ago.

Richard T said:

Yes, but if it went into the hands of a certain elite, they could run the crops more like a cartel, or just depend on the government for their subsidies. Either way they win, the rest lose. While this example might be wrong, this is what is wrong with contemporary America. Too much wealth in the hands of a few. I think God is going to correct that though. The USA is currently at the same level of inequality as occurred in 1929 before the crash.

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I predicted a return to the levels of inequality we witnessed in the past in 2020 and likened it to the Gilded Age. It wasn’t hyperbole.

The Economic Policy Institute produced a report in 2018 titled The New Gilded Age. Inequality.org followed suit in 2019 with their own piece The U-Turn that Turned America Staggeringly Unequal. Fortune Magazine released an article the same year with the headline Gilded Age 2.0: U.S. Income Inequality Increases to Pre-Great Depression Levels.



The problem was being discussed but the majority weren’t paying attention. Here’s a comparison of the period and 1929 if you’re interested.

~bella

iluvatar5150 said:

That doesn't make any sense. Killing farms en masse just to build datacenters is like using a sledgehammer to swat at mosquitoes. The average data center is roughly the size of a WalMart, which is about a couple acres for the building and maybe another 10-20 for the parking lot. Relative to even modest farms, that's nothing.

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I don’t pretend to know all the reasons they want the land but it comes up often and data centers are frequently mentioned. I’m uncertain if farming is the goal but the recent land report reveals a significant interest in acquisitions. Bill Gates made headlines a few years ago for the same.


~bella