While some contractors dismiss the plan as political rhetoric, many say they can’t afford to lose more people from an aging, immigrant-dependent workforce still short of nearly 400,000 people.
Both presidential candidates promise to build more homes. One promises to deport hundreds of thousands of people who build them.
Former President Donald Trump’s pledge to “launch the largest deportation operation in the history of our country” would hamstring construction firms already facing labor shortages and push record home prices higher, say industry leaders, contractors and economists.
“It would be detrimental to the construction industry and our labor supply and exacerbate our housing affordability problems,” said Jim Tobin, CEO of the National Association of Home Builders. The trade group considers foreign-born workers, regardless of legal status, “a vital and flexible source of labor” to builders, estimating they fill 30% of trade jobs like carpentry, plastering, masonry and electrical roles.
his vows are no more meaningful than the clergy’s vows of celibacy
Drive up
home pricesTrump’s property values.Our economy depends on a base of low cost labor that used to be from kids or young people. It’s almost like Democrats have decided to fill that void with immigrants while Republicans are trying to get back to the low cost labor being from having more kids. It makes sense if your goal is to keep the machine running the way it was designed, or at least how it evolved to operate. Social security, insurance, fast food, service industries, construction would all need overhaul to function without low cost labor being their base. Seems like you could reduce consumerism in general to compensate for the reduced low income work force, but that would hurt the economic numbers and cause an overall contraction in the stock market. Tough pills to swallow for everyone who has accumulated any significant amount of wealth in this system.
Conservatives have always been about creating and maintaining have exploitable underclass. First it was owned slaves, then prisoner slaves, than “illegal” immigrants.
Conservatives are trying to deport illegal immigrants and stop allowing them in, which may have a motive, but exploitation is not it.
Thats merely an excuse to keep them as “illegal” and maintain a poltical boogeyman.
Isn’t one of the arguments for raising minimum wage that higher incomes will result in more consumption and social program contribution?
Illegal immigrants are being paid outside of the system and raising minimum wage only increases demand for employing more of them, continuing exploitation of them. You can make an argument for minimum wage increases, but it doesn’t benefit illegal immigrants.
Pay people more, less need for social services and collect more in taxes. Reduces government expenses and raise revenue. More money to spend on infrastructure. This is without fixing tax code so mega wealthy and corporations pay their fair share.
We also wouldn’t have, you know, food, since agriculture and meat-packing are heavily dependent on undocumented immigrants and almost every kitchen in every restaurant in the country is staffed with undocumented immigrants. I want to think that the importance of food and housing would make Republicans not actually do this, but you never know with these crazy fuckwits. Perhaps they think child and prison labor would make an adequate replacement.
Almost all trump related policies will drive up costs for the consumer. He’s only worried about lining the pockets of his rich friends, not making daily life for the average family more affordable
I’m sure he would find some way to profit off of the “driving up home costs” aspect of this.
I’ll be so glad when this election is over and he can just lose the rest of his criminal cases and get sentenced, or have his final Big Mac Attack and dodge justice forever.
I’ll be so glad when this election is over and he can just lose the rest of his criminal cases and get sentenced
As though there’s any real interest in anything that would result in actual consequences.
You mean to tell me that a real estate investor would do something that would drive up housing costs? You mean to tell me that a guy who doesn’t pay his workers doesn’t give a shit about people who work for a living?
And then the response from the democratic candidate ends up being “Harris vows to deport Trump. Builders say it would increase their crews and drive down home costs.”
it doesnt matter. even if trump get elected and all those predicted bad things happen, republicans have no hesitate to spin those onto some leftist/wokish things.
That’s because these anti immigrant views aren’t supported by data, or logic, or common sense. It’s not like Americans are lining up to do the jobs immigrants are taking. The US can’t function as a society today without those immigrants. But the right just wants to coddle its racist base with “brown man bad”.
Its also why, if they finish “rounding up” people to deport, they will scapegoat more people to round up to explain why the economy is so broken
Surely we can acknowledge the difference between a person who came to the country legally and someone who illegally crossed the border. It’s not racist to want a functioning border. A huge number of people voting for Trump are immigrants from Latin America themselves, and even they don’t want people illegally entering the country.
Yeah, I think maybe you’re some sleeper account or something : 7mo old account & comments only today with dilute the issue responses. Curious if a human will get assigned extra work to respond to my j’accusal to “refute” it lol
lemm.ee is down, so I’m using one of my many other accounts. But hey, whatever it takes to dismiss the question and throw in an ad hominem instead, right?
Americans aren’t lining up to do these jobs at low wages, without proper worker protections. Creating a society that depends on a lower tier of people that have fewer rights is seriously fucked up and is not something we should be embracing.
Siding with the rich business owners who are taking advantage of illegal immigrants is extra weird.
Thank you. I’ve always thought it was fucked people used this line of argument. If we can’t build our buildings and clear our own trash? We need an endless stream of low paid poorly treated brown folk to do all those troublesome chores? Seems kinda fucked to me
It’s not a bug, it’s a feature
I’ve always thought it was fucked people used this line of argument.
Nobody is arguing that this is a good arrangement, they’re just saying it’s an arrangement that benefits (typically) conservative business owners who utilize undocumented immigrant labor. Which means mass deportations are probably just Trump pandering to his base and not something he would really do - although there’s no guarantee of that.
Nah, he’d still do it because he’s that much of an evil dumbass.
Industrial facilities, particularly in the food processing industry generally have decent wages and worker protections (safety does however vary wildly from plant to plant) but still rely on immigrant labor because those are often the only people willing to work these jobs, so they end up being the only workplaces that cater to hiring immigrants by having the knowledge of how to legally hire a non-citizen or just having Spanish language documentation and translators on hand.
I know this because I currently manage some databases for a contract industrial cleaning company, so I’ve seen the hard data. It’s not a challenge of pay and benefits, but a challenge of “who’s willing to work third shift cleaning cow guts off of a factory floor for $20-25/hr in bumblefuck Kansas?” And the answer is simply people who don’t have better options, and they’re usually either immigrants or felons. The work itself sucks donkeyballs (and would literally if it’s a plant processing donkey meat) so nobody wants to do it
Here’s the thing these fucking racist shitbags are not telling you. If the country the illegal immigrants came from won’t take them back then the sending country can do shit all to make them. That teams no deportation. No deportation means indefinite detention. Indefinite detention means free labor. I harbor no illusions that this hasn’t been the plan from the start.
The world is at a tipping point. Do we backslide into slavery and genocide, or do we stand against it? It’s not looking good. I, for one, never thought I would see a time when Americans would so blindly goose-step their way into fascism.
From a German perspective you’re almost at the end of your slide.
I’d never thought I’d live (long) after ww2 and experience a similar thing elsewhere during my lifetime. Yet here we are.
Even if Trump doesn’t win (or especially - not meaning he should, though) I assume very bad things coming.
Issues have been ignored for far too long.
Umm you don’t have to take back your citizens? Are you sure?
I read a great legal comment once about how revoking citizenship sounds cool but is really bad for pretty much exactly this reason. You’re left in this weird legal limbo with no country to go to (in that case to face criminal legal process).
Here in the UK there have been a few cases of people of people who scampered off to join Isis etc who have had their citizenship removed and are unable to return to the country. I’m not a law-knower but I think this is pretty legally iffy, it certainly happens though.
Well did they have dual citizenship? That’s different than illegal immigrants who don’t have dual.
It does seem to be debatable in one case - specifically Shamima Begum, at the time she was stripped of citizenship she was apparently entitled to Bangladesh citizenship through her parents (hence why the home secretary felt it was possible) however Bangladesh have said she was never actually a citizen, she’s never been to Bangladesh and they have no intention of giving her Bangladesh citizenship. The courts of appeal in the UK have sided with the former home secretary, however she does appear to be effectively stateless.
In general though, it is understood that a person’s citizenship in the UK cannot be stripped unless they are dual citizens.
I am 90% sure that was only people with dual citizenship
Most likely. I don’t think you’re allowed to knowingly make a person stateless.
You’re also not allowed to stage a coup after losing an election, but they did that anyway.
Translation: Builders would rather go broke than pay anyone a living wage.
Pretty much.
I walked by a construction site when I lived in California, I heard everyone speaking Spanish.
I walk by a construction site now that I live in Indiana and I hear… everyone speaking Spanish.
I’m guessing that at least some of them aren’t citizens.
Anytime you come across someone shitting on immigration ask them who built their house.
I’ve been saying this for years, the American dream is subsidized by cheap labor from South of the border. Without them we would be doing far worse
Not to mention illegal immigrants are half as likely to commit crime as American citizens
Not to mention illegal immigrants are half as likely to commit crime as American citizens
It’s like Umberto said in The Ranch: “We live in fear everyday. 5 miles over the speed limit and it could ruin our life”
“We live in fear everyday. 5 miles over the speed limit and it could ruin our life”
Almost every time I was stuck behind a slow person on the L.A. freeway, they were Latino. I guessed that was why back then and I still do.
When you turn people into contraband, those people drive like they have contraband in the car.
Don’t need to be a citizen to pass eVerify. I’m working with six natural born citizens, one naturalized citizen, three green card holders, three work visa holders and a “dreamer”
By saying that, aren’t contractors admitting that they’re doing something illegal, and that undocumented workers are also prone to abuse and lower pay?
A lot of farmers use farm hands from Mexico with permits and a form of green card that allows them to get paid in American dollars during work seasons to bring back home, and get a path towards American citizenship than if they just entered the country with a passport or applied directly for a visa.
I don’t know if a lot of contractors do the same thing, but I wouldn’t be shocked. The labor is cheap and it kinda looks good for the camera. Adam Raguesa, a YouTube chef, has a good video on how farmers in the modern era grow the crops we eat on the table every day.
